LIBRARY, Of CONGRESS. 

7f^ — 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




v\^ 



Christian Holiness: 



rrs 



/philosophy, Theory, and Experience. 



By Rev. S. h/VlATT, A.M., 



AUTHOR OF 

''The Gift of Power;'' ^'Christ and Adornments;'' "The 
Philosophy of Christian Holiness;" ''Christian Sep- 
aration from the World;" ''The Man of Like Pas- 
sions;" "The Christian Law of Giving;'* "To 
Every Man His Work;" "My 25th Year 
Jubilee;" "The Power of Grace;" 
" The Wondrous Name ; " 
" Queenly Womanhood;" 
'' Princely Manhood;" 
"Nevertheless;" 
"Heredity," 




BROOKLYN, N. Y.: 

The Hope Publishing Compjlny, 

1882. 



pllfc^l 






Copyright. 
S. H. PLATT. 

1882. 



The Library 
OF Congress 



WASHINGTON 



PREFACE. 



Books, like men, have a history. The origin of this 
volume w£ts in a hastily prepared sermon preached at 
the Messiah Camp-meeting at Milford, Conn., Sept. 1, 
1865, which, at a special meeting of the ministers pres- 
ent was requested for publication. Upon being printed 
in pamphlet form, the whole edition of 2300 copies was 
sold within a few days. 

Bishop K.. S Foster, in his revised edition of " Chris- 
tian Purity,''^ did it the honor to quote entire thirty-four 
of its thirty-seven pages, with mingled approbation and 
dissent, concluding with this paragraph : '* The treatise 
contains not only important and astutely expressed 
truth, but more than that, points the way to some deep 
and occult cases which are of real value to the discus- 
sion. With slight verbal changes, and a few modifica- 
tions of ideas, we should feel that the treatise is not only 
able, but essentially correct. It has three great merits ; 
its spirit is excellent, its manner is fresh and unique, 
and it recognizes and enforces the great doctrine of the 
need and possibility of advanced holiness on the part of 
believers ; not failing to recognize the fact that the 
Holy Ghost is the great agent who also will do it in a 



17 PREFACE. 

moment on the faith of the seeking soul." " Christian 
Purity;' pp. 363-4. 

Much thought and frequent intercourse with seekers 
after the higher grades of Christian experience, together 
with a free interchange of views with many who have 
experienced much, have convinced the writer of the 
need of a work upon this subject differing in . its forms 
of statement, scope of application and clearly defined 
limitations, from all that has previously appeared. Ig- 
noring no well-established facts, controverting no class 
of writers, seeking nothing new because it is new, cling- 
ing to nothing old because it is old, but prayerfully ap- 
propriating all helps of science within reach, and fear- 
lessly expressing facts of Christian experience in terms 
of modern thought, the writer has endeavored to evolve 
something that shall help the struggling spirit in its ef- 
forts to reach higher good ; (whether he has succeeded 
in retaining the excellences above named, the reader 
will decide.) In doing so, he has felt the impulse of a 
profound conviction that every branch of human knowl- 
edge is susceptible of philosophical treatment, and that 
whenever a sufficient number of facts have been noted to 
justify that attempt, a candid and patient effort in that 
direction will always be productive of good. 

"Let there be Md before the Church, especially be- 
fore souls panting after; ^ all the fullness of God/ the ex- 
act transcript of each Christian consciousness under the 



PBEFACE. V 

illumination of the Holy Ghost, so far as language can 
be a vehicle of that which ^ passeth knowledge/ and not 
only will souls in trouble be comforted, but there will 
be accumulated a mass of facts, out of which some ana- 
lytical mind, some theological Sir William Hamilton, 
may do what all systemizers have hitherto failed to do, 
construct out of the Bible and experience, a consistent 
and symmetrical science of Christian perfection/* Rev, 
Daniel Steele^ D, D. 

The Author is not vain enough to believe himself the 
Sir Wm. Hamilton referred to, but consoles himself with 
the thought that when that Philosopher does appear he 
will not be unwilling to have had his work pioneered 
by even this small effort in the direction of systematic 
statement. 

As to the success of the present undertaking it is for 
one class of readers only to decide, viz., those who will 
survey its several parts, not as detached statements iso- 
lated from their relations, but as segments of the one 
whole, and that whole to be carefully considered in the 
spirit of investigation which discards all prejudice and 
holds all theories in check while the examination pro- 
ceeds. 

Such as it is, it is trustfully committed to the care of 
that Providence who will assign its sphere and guard its 
results. The Author. 



MY WORK. 



Hast thou work for me, my Father,— 
Work for me, and me alone? 

Task thou canst not give another, — 
Let that task to me be shown. 

Does that deed to me, my Father, 
Seem so little and ur'mown 

That, to greater I would rather 
Turn and leave this all undone? 

Hast such work for me, my Father, 
Work that should this day be done— 

From some field a sheaf to gather ? 
Now I make that work my own. 

Hast thou work for me, my Father, 
Work to large dimensions grown? 

For that toil of faith and power 
Now anoint thy trusting one. 

Come, my Father, strong and loving^ 
Guide and Helper, kind and true. 

To my heart this moment proving 
Thou dost give the power to do. 

O, my Father, in my doing 
Let thy will be fully done! 

May that will — divine, unerring, 
Crown the work by me begun. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I. ITS PHILOSOPHY. 
Chapter I. The Legitimate Scope of the Subject. 

1. Not to prove its existence, p. 1 

2. Not to correct theological misstatements of it. 

3. Must survey all classes of facts pertaining to it. 

4. Should exhibit the principles in accordance with 

which the experience becomes possible, p. 4. 

5. Should consider the forces involved, as deducible 

from its facts and principles, p. 4. 

6. Must enunciate the laws of the subject, p. 4. 

7. Should show the relation of those laws to the facts of 

personal responsibility, p. 5. 

Chapter II. The Experimental Facts Stated. 
P. 6. 

1. Pre-regenerate. pp. 6-17. 1. A universal conscious- 

ness of guilt, p. 6. 2. A corruption of the Nature, 
p. 7. (1) Original, p. 7-9. (2) Acquired, p. 9. A. 
Physical, p. 10. B. Mental, p. 10. C. Spiritual, 
p. 10. (3) Hereditary, pp. 11-14. 3. Contrition 
for sin. (1) Self-condemnation, p. 15. (2) Grief, 
p. 15. 4. Repentance for sin. p. 16. 5. Belief in 
Christ as a pres-ent Savior, p. 17. (1) Intellectual 
credence. (2) Hearty reliance. 

2. Con-regenerate facts, p. 18. 1. A mysterious inter- 

nal change — embracing. (1) An assurance of par- 
don. (2) A consciousness of freedom from guilt. (3) 
The absence of self-condemnation, p. 19. (4) Con- 
sciousness of love for God and his people. (5) Ab- 
solute and grateful submission to ail his will. (6) 
A new-born zeal to do good. p. 20. (7) Hatred of 
sin. (8) Joy in me Holy Ghost, p. 21. 2. An outr 
ward change corresponding with the inward. 



yih, COM TENTS. 

3. Post-regenerate facts, p. 22. 1. A period of joyful 
trinmph. 2. x4. sad discovery of in-dwelling sin. 3. 
Consternation and confusion, p. 23. 4. Kallying to 
the struggle, p. 24. 5, Alternate victories and de- 
feats. 6. The cleansing, p. 25. 7. The re-awaken- 
ings, p. 27. 8. The renewed cleansings. 

Chapter III. The Forces Engaged. P. 28. 

Spirit, soul and body discriminated, p. 29. Attributes 
of each. pp. 29, 30. the difference, p. 30. Spirit fac- 
ulties of a higher order. Spirit has three that the soul 
has not. pp. 31, 32. 

1. Spirit-forces. Divine ; human ; Satanic, p. 33. 

2. Psychical, — soul-forces involved. 

3. Physical. 1. Vital force. 2. Sensibility-co-operating 

force, p. 34. 3. Automatic, or reflex activity force. 
The law of spirit-habit, p. 34. Habit, p. 35. 4. 
Will-co-operating force. 5. Mind-conditionating 
force. The structure and function of the brain and 
nerves, p. 36. The cerebro-spinal nervous system, 
p. 36. Two kinds of tissue in nervous system, p. 
37. (1) White substance. (2) Grey substance. The 
structure of nerve filaments, p. 38. A. Colorless 
tubular membrane. B. Semifluid tubular marrow. 
C. Axis cylinder. The cerebro-spinal system con- 
sists of — p. 39 — A. The spinal cord. B. Themedulia 
oblongata, p. 40. C. The sensory ganglia. D. The cer- 
ebellum. E. The cerebrum. Their appliances for the 
discharge of their functions are: A. The spinal 
cord and its thirty-two pairs of nerves, p. 40. The 
functions of the cord are, (a) That of a nerve-center, 
pp. 41, 42. With a triple object, viz. : ((aj) To 
scatter an entering influence into a number of tracks. 
p. 43. ((b)) To combine it into a new result, ((c)) 
To retain a residuum from it. (b) Another func- 
tion of the cord is as a nerve of communication, p. 
44. (c) Still another is as a pathway for certain 
channels of sensation. The medulla, p. 44. Sen- 
sorium-commune. p. 45. Conscious sensations. 
Keflex actions. Involuntary movements. May be 



CONTENTS. IX, 

excited by the organic stimuli, p. 46. Conscious- 
ness, p. 47. The sensory ganglia are, p. 48. (1) 
Seats of sensational consciousness. (2 j Of con- 
sciousness of mental states. (3) Centres of sensori- 
reflex movements. (4) Springs of nervous force to 
bear the mandates of the will to the muscles. The 
cerebellum, — co-ordinates voluntary movements, p. 
49. The cerebrum receives impressions from the 
immaterial spirit, p. 49. The will of the spirit 
stands in the place of a higher nervous centre, pp. 
49-50. The direction of the reactions of the cere- 
brum, p. 51. The nature of emotions, p. 51. De- 
termined largely by the acquired nature, p. 52. 
The psychical tone. p. 52. The will in some rela- 
tions automatic, p. 53. 

Chapter IV. The Principles Concerned. P. 55. 

1. Those which relate to God. 1. God's equity in grace. 

p. 56. 2. Different degrees of moral purity con- 
sistent with a Christian character, p. 57. 3. The 
incompatibility of present justification with a present 
state of moral unfitness for heaven, p. 59. 4. Holi- 
ness the grand requisite for admission to heaven, 
p. 61. How much ? p. 62. (1) So much as is in- 
volved in regeneration. (2) Such as is added by a 
faithful life. (3) Such as is given in the hour of 
death. No promise of such. p. 63. Reasons against 
the view. pp. 63-67. 5. The immediate accom- 
plishment of His part of the work of salvation upon 
the occurrence of the right conditions in the sub- 
ject, p. 67. 6. The necessity of dealing with dis- 
similar facts as dissimilar, p. 68. The me and the 
my.^ 

2. Principles which relate to men. p. 70. Preliminary 

propositions. First— Religious mental processes 
subject to the ordinary laws of mental action, p. 70. 
Second — Physical states modify mental action in 
religious experience. 1. He must be convicted of 
the reality and malignity of his moral disease, p. 
71. 2. Must be convinced that there is an effectual 



X. CO^^TENTS. 

remedy for him. 3. Must desire and determine to 
procure it. 4. Must be conscious of the validity of 
his efforts, p. 72. 5. Must have a positive assur- 
ance of cure. 6. Yet all these things subject to the 
modifications induced by physical conditions, p. 73. 
3. Principles which relate to the Tempter. 1. Unmiti- 
gated hostility to the work in all its phases, p. 73. 
2. Pre-inclination to frustrate it. p. 74. 

Chapter Y. The Laws in Action. P. 74. 

1. Mental, p. 75. 1, Laws of normal development and 

action. (1) The recognized dominancy of reason, 
conscience and judgment. (2) Each faculty used 
in its own ephere. p. 76. (3) The testimony of each 
unimpeachable within its appropriate sphere, p. 77. 
2. Laws of abnormal development and action, p. 78. 
(1) Perversity: — regulative faculties overborne. 
Illustrations of its power. Habits. Coleridge, pp. 
79-81. Largely physical, pp. 81-82. (2) Irregu- 
larity : — habitual disuse, or excessive use of certain 
faculties. 

2. Spiritual. 1. Laws of normal spiritual development 

and action, p. 85. (1) Acceptance of Christ as the 
all-sufficient Savior. (2) Complete submission to 
the will of God. p. 85. (3) Entire consecration to 
the work of God. (4) Eeliance upon the guidance 
and sustainment of the Holy Spirit, p. 87. (5) 
Procurement of the special helps of grace. 2. Laws 
of abnormal spiritual development and action, p. 
88. (1) Partial acceptance of Christ. (2) Eebel- 
lion against God's will. p. 89. (3) Defective con- 
secration to God's work. (4) Par^.^'al self-guidance 
and self-dependence, p. 90. (5) Neglect of the aid 
of the Holy Spirit. (6) Mental instability. (7) 
Excessive mental bias. p. 91. (8) Bodily infirmi- 
ties. 

3. Physical, p. 92. 1. Laws of normal development and 

action. (1) Healthful respiration. (2) Normal 
circulation. (3) Adequate and balanced nutrition, 
p. 93. (4) Well-regulated activity. (5) Timely 



CONTENTS. XI. 

and sufficient protection. 2. Laws of abnormal 
development and action. (1) Disturbance of func- 
tion, p. 94. A. Diminished or excessive func- , 
tional activity. B. Sympathetic disturbance of 
other functions. (2) Organic change of functional 
product, p. 95. (3) Consequent organic changes 
elsewhere. (4) Inheritance, p. 96. Heredity de- 
fined. Physical and moral degeneracy the result. 
p. 97. Deviations from the normal type. p. 98. 
The habit of the parent becoming the instinct of 
the child. Intemperance and insanity, p. 99. Moral 
liberty, p. 100. The laius of transmission and heri- 
tage, p. 101. A. Uniformity. B. Duplication, 
a. Physical peculiarities of structure or functions, 
pp. 102-104. b. Organic or nervous diseases, p. 
104. c. Special tendencies or aptitudes to certain 
modes of action, p. 104. d. Mental traits, p. 105. 
e. Sentiments and passions. C. Diversity, a. In 
species and varieties, p. 107. b. In nervous dis- 
eases, p. 108. c. In the transmission of tempo- 
rary states, p. 109. D. Impressional heredity, p. 
110-114, E. Eecurrency. p. 114. Modifying 
forces, p. 115. a. The influence of one parent in 
counteracting that of the other, p. 116. b. The 
union of the influence of both. c. Any influence 
that gives temporary dominancy to the forces of 
diversity as against duplication, and vice versa, p. 
117. d. Any habitual subjection to cause that an- 
tagonize recurrency. e. Spontaneous variations. 
The cause of transmission, p. 119. Heredity as re- 
lated to the temperaments, viz. : inactive, vital, 
mental, p. 121, 

Chapter VI. The Eelation of these Laws to 
Personal Eesponsibility. P. 123. 

1, Personal responsibility is modified by two princi- 

ples. 1. Sufficient knowledge. 2. Sufficient power, 
p. 124. 

2. These principles applied, p. 125. 1. Sufficiency of 

knowledge. 2. Sufficiency of power, p. 126. A 



1. CONTENTS. 

distinct species of abnormal humanity, p. 127. (1) 
A condition in which impulse is the only law. p. 
128. (2) May be induced by circumstances. (3) 
Their responsibilty. The chemistry of character, 
pp. 129-131. Special laws for the unfortunates, p. 
131. (1) Conscious integrity of purpose. (2) 
Honest and habitual effort to carry it out. p. 132. 
With sufficient knowledge and power the normal laws 
of Christian holiness sweep through the entire field 
of personal responsibility, pp. 132-134. So of the 
normal laws of physical action, pp. 134-136. 



PAET II. 

Chapter I. The Theory of Christiaint Holiness. 
P. 136. 

1. Man has a three-fold nature. 

2. Spirit discriminated from soul. 

3. Conscience, intuitions, and moral obligation. 

4. Conscience demands perfect obedience. 

5. Intelligence apprehends a law of obedience and a 

future existence. 

6. Depravities. 

7. Plan of grace. 

8. After regeneration depravities inhere in the soul and 

body. p. 138. 

9. Proper work of Christian life is to — 1. Continue re- 

generated. 2. Seek the complemental condition of 
soul and body. 3. Complimental condition reached 
by — (1) Substituting out. (2) Eevolutionary power 
of the Holy Spirit. 4. Complimental condition 
maintained. 

10. Power of the Holy Spirit in the expulsion of 
acquired appetites, &c. p. 139. 

11. In the cure of diseases, pp. 140-142. 

12. Natural appetites readjusted, pp. 142-143. 

13. The modus operandi, p. 144. 

14. The law of emotion, p. 145. 

15. Transmission of godly predispositions, p. 146. 

16. Possible sanctifications. p. 148. 1. Normal. 2. 



CONTENTS. Xlll. 

Neuropathic. 3. Super-normal. 4. Emotional 

17. Interchangeable, p. 149. 

18. Outward evidences, p. 149. 1. Normal ; harmony 
with the will of God. 2. Neuropathic ; wanting. 

3. Super-normal ; a marked contrast in addition to 
the normal evidence, p. 150. 

19. These discriminations must be made in the interests 
of large-hearted charity. 

Chapter II. Objections Considered. P. 152. 

1. To assumed facts. 1. To the reality of any such 

experience as Christian Hoiiness, 2. To the un- 
derlying assumption that consciousness correctly 
reports the true state of the heart, p. 153. 3. To 
the assumption that Christians are not made entirely 
holy by a single act of sanctifying grace, p, 154. 

4. To the assumption that Philosophy is competent 
to deal with this question without the aid of Eeve- 
lation. p. 156. 

2. Verbal objections. "The phraseology is unusual, 

and will not be understood.'^ p. 157. 

3. Logical objections, p. 158. 1. ^' Too much conces- 

sion made to the materialistic theories of the day." 
2 ^'Free-will is limited in the ratio of the extension 
of heredity." p. 159. 3. '' Education is more pow- 
erful than heredity." p. 161. 4. This use of hered- 
ity loads parents with a responsibility fearful to 
contemplate, p. 162. 

4. Theoretical objections. 1. "The classification of 

sanctification ^ives too much ground to self-excul- 
pation." p. 163. 2. "In attributing depravity to 
the soul and body, the Scriptures are denied and a 
doctrine of heathen philosophy is foisted into Chris- 
tianity." p. 164. 3. " The eradication of artificial 
appetites is a delusion." p. 166. 4. " The doctrine 
of faith-cures lias no foundation in fact in these 
times, and tends to fanaticism." pp. 167-170. 5. 
" The supposition on page 144 that brain and nerves 
are subject to spirit influence has no foundation." 
p. 170. 6. " Too much stress is laid upon the sug- 



CONTENTS. 



gestions of the Holy Spirit/' p. 172. 7. '' There is 
nothing in the Bible about peculiar constitutions." 
p. 175. 8. " There are remnants of the old deprav- 
ity existing after regeneration." p. 176. 



PAET III. THE EXPEEIENCE. P. 178. 
Chapter 1. Practical Deductions. P. 179. 

Explanatory of the way. 1. A way of positive self- 
assertion. 2. Of the highest self-abnegation, p. 180. 
3. Of entire consecration, p. 182. 4. Of invincible 
resolution, p. 183. 5. Of unquestioning faith, p. 
185. Involving certain elements, pp. 186-192. 6. 
Of immovable trust, p. 192. 7. Of determined 
avoidance of the abnormal, p. 194-199. 

Advisory as to the methods, p. 200. 1. Make right 
discriminations as to what is required. (1) Exact 
correspondence of real with ideal Christian life 
not expected. (2) Conscious environment of 
Deity *' keeping " the soul not looked for. p. 
202. (3) Constant stretch after the higher not 
desirable, p. 203. (4) Complete control of the 
thoughts not to be hoped for. p. 204. Effects of 
accidents and diseases detailed, pp. 204-213. Cri- 
terion to distinguish the genesis of thoughts, p. 214. 
(5) The experience is not an undisturbed calm. p. 
214. (6) It does not imply the absence of pa'nful 
and unreasonable emotions, p. 215. (7) Freedom 
from peevish tempers not to be looked for. p. 218. 
(8) Absence of sense-deceptions not involved, p. 
221. (9) Extinguishment of morbid appetites not 
implied, p. 222. (10) Control of nervous agita- 
tions not supposed, p. 223. (11) Absence of spas- 
modic muscular movements not involved, p. 224. 
What then is inwlved ? p. 224. 1. Not to attempt 
the impracticable. 2. Kightly distribute the work 
to be done. p. 225. 3. Do your part faithfully, p. 
226. 4. Trust God to do his part instantly, p. 226. 



CONTENTS. XV. 

3. Admonitory of the dangers, p. 227. 1, Dallying 
with temptation. 2. Eesling in partial success, p. 
229. 3. Suppression of testimony. 4. Eepression 
of the emotions, p. 230. 5. Seeking a quiescent 
peace, p. 233. 6. Fanaticism, p. 235. 7. Canting 
pietism. 

Chapter II. The Subject Practically Applied. 

1. To the private Christian, p. 235. 1. As an experience 

personally needed. 2. As an experience certainly 
attainable, p. 237. An experience traced, pp. 238- 
240. Grace sanctifies just as far as the will defi- 
nitely concurs, p. 241. Illustrated by blood disease. 
p. 242. Habits may be eradicated in two ways — 
(1) By voluntary, gradual obliteration and substitu- 
tion, p. 244. Subject to— a. The law of impression, 
b. The law of inspiration, p. 245. (2) By revolu- 
tionary and supernatural substitution, p. 246. Illus- 
trative examples. Must be preceded by consecra- 
tion, p. 249. 3. As peculiarly affecting the mar- 
riage relation, p, 250. Duty of parents to beget 
children better than themselves. 

2. The subject applied to organized churches, p. 254. 

1. As a formula of faith. (1) The creed of limited 
salvation. (2) The creed of holiness, p, 255. 2. 
As the mightiest force of evangelism, p. 256. Sanc- 
tified men are God's veterans, p. 258. Conductors 
of Omnipotence, p. 260. The endowments of 
power, p. 261, Illustrative examples of. pp. 265- 
271. 

3. The subject applied to the ministry, p. 271. 1. As a 

source of personal and pulpit power. Example. 
The philosophy of the matter, p , 273. The types 
of the old dispensation, p. 274. Ministers are 
sample-exhibitors, p. 276, 2. As a means of re- 
vival interest, p. 278. Purity has the maximum of 
constitutional spontaneities and the minimum of 
clogging antagonisms, p. 279. 

4. The subject applied to the press, p. 281. 1. As a 

standard of public morality. 2. As a reformatory 
agency among men. p. 282. 



XVI. CONTENTS. 

5. The subject applied to institutions of leariiing. p. 
284. 1. As crowning culture with the glory of 
purity. 2. As approximating the attainable per- 
tection of man. p. 286. 3. As giving such insti- 
tutions the moulding power that they ought to 
possess, p. 287. 



CHRISTIAINT H0LI:N^ESS : 



Its Philosophy, Theory, and Experience. 



CHAPTEK I. 

THE LEGITIMATE SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT. 

1. It is no part of the philosophy of a thing 
to prove its existence. 

Therefore, the present treatise will assume the 
fact of Christian Holiness without argument, and 
will have no concern with the difficulties or ob- 
jections grounded upon a denial of that state of 
grace. 

2. It is not designed to correct theological 
misstatements of the doctrine. 

All dogmas based upon the signification of the 
words of revelation are liable to be misunder- 
stood. To correct such errors is doubtless a work 
of great importance, but it belongs to a sphere of 
investigation entirely distinct from this. 

3. A philosophy of Christian Holiness should 
survey all the facts pertaining to the subject. 

The philosophy of any department of knowl- 
edge properly denotes — a systematic statement of 



Z CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

the phenomena or facts embraced within it ; the 
forces by which they are caused ; the methods or 
laws of their production ; and the conditions or 
principles in accordance with which their produc- 
tion is possible. 

These distinctions may be illustrated thus: 
This pen is now tracing characters upon this page. 
This tracing is a fact. That which propels the 
pen is muscular contraction effected by volitional 
force. The laws of this tracing are the uniform 
methods Avhich prevail in the art of penmanship. 
The principles are those conditions of form, em- 
bracing straight lines, angles, circles, and curves, 
by which alone the formation of letters is possible. 

So, Christian lives are traced in characters 
"known and read of all men." Those lives are 
facts— each made up of myriads of minor facts — 
every one of which became a fact by the opera- 
tion of certain forces, and those forces found ex- 
pression in those facts by the pathways of certain 
unvarying uniformities called laws, all along 
which they were hedged in by impassable condi- 
tions called principles. 

Our Avork, therefore, is to scan the facts, ascer- 
tain the principles, learn the forces, and deduce 
the laws. The facts referred to are all those ef- 
fects of the operation of the physical, mental, and 
spiritual forces in the religious life, which may 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 6 

be apprehended as distinct from the forces pro- 
ducing them. 

Facts are the indexes of laws and the expo- 
nents of forces. They are out-cropping lodes that 
indicate the veins which lie beneath the surface. 
They are projections which reveal the character 
and dip of underlying strata. If we would map 
the veins and layers, it must be by carefully com- 
paring the trend and structure of all points to 
which we have access. So, the facts of holy liv- 
ing are not to be taken in isolation, and specula- 
tive theories founded upon them, but are to be 
viewed as parts of a connected system, to be ade- 
quately comprehended only by those who patiently 
search for the forces and la¥/s concerned in its 
development and the principles in accordance with 
which that development proceeds. Here, as in 
other fields of truth, facts may seem to conflict, 
forces may appear to range themselves in mutual 
antagonism, laws may look discordant, and prin- 
ciples may seem crude ; but the earnest inquirer 
will not rest content without pressing toward the 
light wherein he may behold forces rightly ad- 
justed, laws wisely adapted, principles clearly 
revealed, and facts explained in harmony with the 
divine thoughts. But to do this, there must be a 
careful collation of all the classes of facts bear- 
ing upon the subject, lest those omitted should 



CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 



chance to contain some elements of importance to 
the final elucidation. 

4. A philosophy of this subject should exhibit 
the principles in accordance with which the ex- 
perience becomes practicable. 

Principles, as here understood, are those ele- 
mental or constitutional conditions by which only 
it is possible for the forces to act at all in this di- 
rection. Clearly, then, an omission of principles 
would, to that extent, invalidate the claim of any 
work to be a philosophy of this subject. 

6. The forces involved, as deducible from the 
facts and principles, should be carefully weighed. 
By force is meant, capacity to produce change; 
that is, any of the modifications or transforma- 
tions which occur in the transition from a life of 
sin to a life of faith, and in the progress of that 
life. Should any force be overlooked, the facts 
efiected by it would to that extent fail to be un- 
derstood, or, perhaps, be misunderstood. Hence, 
our survey must embrace not only the forces nu- 
merically, but, as far as practicable, in their rel- 
ative efficiency likewise. 

6. The laws of the subject should be enun- 
ciated. 

The laws are the uniform methods of action of 
the physical, mental, and spiritual forces in the 
production of the changes which reveal them- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. O 

selves as facts. Scarcely less important than the 
knowledge of a force, is the knowledge how that 
force acts in practical experience. Therefore, the 
philosophy which fails to comprehend the laws of 
its subject will, in the same ratio, ever be liable to 
the charge of inutility. 

7, The relation of these laws to the facit of 
personal responsibility should be shown. 

Speculation may revel in the wilds of lawless 
fancy, but true philosophy always bears the stamp 
of utility upon its brow. Hence, to explain the 
laws of Christian life and development is but a 
part of its work. It would avail but little for 
the carpenter of a shipwrecked craft to explain 
to his fellows in misfortune the laws of naval 
architecture, unless he also taught them how to 
apply those laws in the construction of a boat 
from the timbers of the wreck. So, a knowledge 
of the laws of Christian purity needs to be ap- 
plied in the matter of personal obligation, in order 
to reach the high results that are desirable. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE EXPEBIMENTAL FACTS STATED. 

Having thus briefly indicated what is not, and 
what is included in the present undertaking, we 
now proceed to consider the facts involved in the 
subject, as gathered with strict impartiality from 
all the experiences of which the author has knowl- 
edge. 

1, Piie-iiege:n^eeate Facts of Experiej^ce. 

1. Of these, the first to be noted is a universal 
consciousness of guilt 

The existence of the various religions of the 
world — both true and false — with their diverse 
methods of propitiating the favor of the gods, 
expresses the universal consciousness that guilt is 
the horrid nightmare whose sufibcating burden 
presses peace and joy from the heart of man. It 
is this sense of guilt that drives the sinner to his 
Savior for relief. It is the one engrossing thought 
which prostrates him as a helpless penitent at the 
foot of the cross. To his mind, salvation from 
guilt is equivalent to deliverance from the rack- 
ing tortures of remorse. True, this sense of guilt 
is not in all cases equally pungent. When per- 
sons have been trained to a life of prayer, and 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 7 

taught frequently to repent of sin, it is not unus- 
ual for such to be almost destitute of the painful 
emotions which characterize the penitence of those 
less favored— they exhibiting chiefly an earnest 
longing for the good to be found in religion, or a 
calm purpose to seek God because it is necessary 
and right. Yet, this in no wise conflicts with the 
general fact stated above. On the contrary, the 
settled, though unemotional, conviction which 
they have is a confirmation of the fact, inasmuch 
as it is the stratified deposit from an experience 
that has been often tossed with emotions of guilt 
for separate acts of wrong. 

2. The second pre-regenerate fact of exper- 
ience is, a corruption of the nature, as universal 
as the guilt, and anterior to it in time. 

This is the fruitful soil from which spring all 
the guilt-entailing actions of men. We shall con- 
sider it under three heads : 

(1) Original depravity, or the depravity of loss. 
Adam was created with a two-sided nature. 
The animal — embracing his appetites, propensi- 
ties, and desires — linked him by means of his 
senses to the material and the tangible. The spir- 
itual — comprising his reason, conscience, and spir- 
itual afiections — united him by means of afiinities, 
truth, and law, to the spiritual and divine. These 
natures were so adjusted that the spiritual, with 



8 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

the assistance of God's indwelling Spirit, which 
was given as the complement of his spiritual af- 
fections to fill his consciousness with the bliss of 
divine communion, was capable of retaining com- 
plete supremacy. 

But when, in the exercise of his volitional free- 
dom he sinned, the divine life fled out of him ; 
the complement of' his better nature was lost; 
the counterpoise had therefore ceased, and the ad- 
justments were no longer equable. He was de- 
praved ; that is, he had lost the proper balance of 
his nature, in the flight of the divine life by which 
the equipoise had been maintained. The conse- 
quence could not be other than the exhibition of 
an undue and hitherto unnatural bias toward the 
objects of sense, and a corresponding indifierence 
to the objects of spiritual afiection. The prepon- 
derance of inclination changed at once from the 
lofty aspirations of purity and joy to the grovel- 
ing propensities of sense and selfishness. 

The vacuums in his afiections and conscious- 
ness, occasioned by the withdrawal of the divine 
life, stimulated cravings which could only be par- 
tially satisfied by a more and more intense self- 
life which continually swept the tendencies of the 
nature further and further from their original 
bearings. But, "as by the offense of one judg- 
ment came upon all men to condemnation ; even 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 9 

SO by the righteousness of one the free gift came 
upon all men unto justification of life/' That is, 
as the counterbalancing divine life was uncondi- 
tionally lost to all the race by Adam's sin, so, it 
was unconditionally restored to all by Christ's 
intervention; and, therefore, every infant is in 
this respect precisely in the condition that he 
would have been if Adam had not fallen. By 
this we mean that every child has freely given to 
him as his birth-right, under the atonement, such 
a measure of the indwelling Spirit of God, that, 
were there no other disabilities pressing upon him, 
he would be just as favorably pre-inclined to the 
right as Adam was before his sin. But, unfortu- 
nately for humanity, while the indwelling Spirit 
was restored, the effect of its loss had gone be- 
yond the mere fact of loss and perpetuated itself 
in — 

(2) Acquired depravity, or the depravity of 
degeneracy. By the fundamental laws of cause 
and effect, and of moral affinity, the constitution, 
thus biased toward sin, would in every subse- 
quent act of guilt crowd the depravation a little 
further, until a degree of perversion would ensue 
measured only by the opportunities afforded and 
the susceptibilities of the nature itself. This spe- 
cies of depravity may be most conveniently con- 
sidered under three aspects : 



10 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

A, PhysieaL The formation of any habit that 
debilitates or perv^erts the natural and healthful 
functions of the bodily organs, is a corresponding 
depravation of the body. The appetites may be 
educated to the selection of the most filthy and 
noxious substances, such as tobacco, opium, arse- 
nic, alcohol, etc., in place of those nutrients which 
nature has provided ; or, to the most abominable 
practices of lust and uncleanness ; but it is al- 
ways a training in depravity which develops the 
worst capabilities of the nature. 

B, Mental. By the mutual interaction that 
is perpetually going on between body and mind, 
physical depravity passes directly into the men- 
tal, in the consciousness that reason and manhood 
are enslaved by the power of domineering appe- 
tite. Wherever false views of true manhood pre- 
vail ; wherever prejudice blinds the mind to 
truth ; or error is maintained for its apparent ad- 
vantages ; or the emotions are deadened to their 
appropriate excitants, or alive mainly to unnat- 
ural stimulants ; or the fripperies of fashion are 
esteemed more than duty, or the blandishments of 
pleasure more than righteousness ; there is mental 
depravity as degrading as it is destructive. 

C, Spiritual. This is found wherever the 
longings of the spiritual nature are met with any- 
thing short of an infinite object, or the conscience 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 11 

is constrained to be aught but supreme, or the 
final law of action is anything but duty. 

Acquired depravity, in either of the above 
forms, may arise from either of two sources : a. 
It may be voluntarily induced by sin, which is a 
wrong act or state of the will in reference to some 
matter of moral obligation, and which is always 
and necessarily depraving. 6. It may be im- 
pressed by bad educational influences, such as the 
demoralizing agencies of social life. 

(3) Hereditary depravity, or the depravity of 
congenital perversion. The laws of descent are as 
fixed and changeless as those which control the 
planetary movements. Men rely upon them with 
unquestioning confidence in the improvement of 
domesticated animals, and by them effect any de- 
sired changes in the individual which the possi- 
bilities of the species will permit. The ground 
of reliance is this : A habit in the parent tends 
to impress an inborn habit, or constitutional pre- 
disposition to the same habit in the progeny. 
This law is unvarying ; the numerous apparent 
exceptions being only illustrations of neutralizing 
or overbalancing impressions received, (perhaps 
from the other parent,) by the operation of the 
same law. 

In estimating its results in any given case, it 
should always be borne in mind that in every in- 



12 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

dividual two lines of descent from his parents are 
immediately converged, while a single step back, 
these lines are intermingled with other lines from 
his grand-parents ; and so on backward indefinite- 
ly, till we perceive that each person must be the 
product of an innumerable multitude of modify- 
ing forces which it is impossible for us to estimate, 
and yet which sufficiently account for all the ap- 
parent deviations from the established laws of 
descent. As a curious fact bearing upon this 
point, we quote from the Report of the Superin- 
tendent of the Insurance Department of New 
York for 1867 : "In considering merely the ques- 
tion of hereditary influences on mortality, the 
following table will exhibit to the eye the fact 
that, if we go back only a dozen generations in 
the direct ancestral line, the blood of 8,190 dif- 
ferent persons commingles with that of our own 
children, and in each one of their ancestors' veins 
flowed a scarlet current of life equally freighted 
with infinite ancestral tendencies." 

In the descending line, assuming husband and 
wife to have four children, and that this double 
or quadruple multiplication will continue for 
only twelve generations, we see that our own 
blood will inspire or misguide 5,592,404 diflTerent 
human beings. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 13 

Tabular Illustration: 



Total, 


8,190 ancestors. 


12th 


« 


4.096 


11th 


({ 


2,048 


10th 


<i 


1,024 


9th 


(( 


512 


8th 


(C 


256 


7th 


(( 


128 


6th 


<( 


64 


5th 


11 


32 


4th 


u 


16 great-grandparents. 


3rd 


« 


8 grandparents. 


2nd 


iC 


4 parents. 


1st generation, 


Husband and wife. 


2nd 


a 


4 children. 


3rd 


cc 


* 16 grandchildren. 


4th 


it 


64 great-grandchildren, 


5th 


<( 


256 


6th 


a 


1,024 


7th 


i( 


4,096 


8th 


u 


16,384 


9th 


u 


65,536 


10th 


(( 


262,144 


11th 


<( 


1,048,576 


12th 


(C 


4,194,304 



Total, 5,592,404 descendants. 

Every man is what he is, at birth, by tbe action 
of fixed laws for which he is not responsible. 
His responsibility begins only with opportunities 
of improvement. 

We have already said that when Adam sinned 
he acquired depravation by the act. He may 
have been penitent and regenerated before his 



14 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

first child was conceived ; but regeneration, being 
a supernatural gift, could not be transmitted, 
either before the fall or after it. 

Hence the laws of descent, fixed in the very 
constitution of organic life, must have caused 
Cain to inherit depravity from his parents. To 
this he added acquired depravity in the murder of 
his brother ; and his children must have inherited 
not only his inherited depravity, but the fearful 
addition of his acquired depravity. Thus the 
stream flowed on, widening and deepening and in- 
tensifying in every generation, till the whole earth 
had "corrupted its way before God." Now blend 
together all the warping and disorganizing influ- 
ences of acquired and hereditary depravity flow- 
ing through the ages, and the wonder is, not that 
men are as bad as they are, but that they are not 
a thousand fold worse, as they certainly would be 
were it not for the antagonizing influences of 
grace acting through the same laws of descent.* 

^ The law that wrought such havoc, had other possi- 
bilities. Though regeneration, because supernatural, 
could not be transmitted, yet its elevating and purifying ef- 
fects on the mind might 6e, because they were certain defi- 
nite impressions upon the constitution which, by that 
fact, became subject to the laws of descent. One great 
object that God had in choosing Israel as his peculiar 
people doubtless was, that the gradual elevation of the 
people, by the laws of hereditary descent, might build 
up a national breakwater against the tide of depravity in 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 15 

3. The third pre-regenerate fact is, contrition 
for sin. 

This implies, (1) self-condemnation for the mis- 
deeds of the past, and (2) grief for the sinfulness 
involved. 

Memory recalls the acts and dispositions of 
life's record, and Conscience sits in judgment pro- 
nouncing its condemnation of the wrong. The 
reason renders its verdict in strict accordance 
with the conscience ; and the spiritual affections, 
under the stimulus of the Divine Spirit, grieve 
over the wreck and loss. 

Grief fixes the attention, while the law of asso- 
sociation hunts out of all the chambers of the 
soul the dust-covered records of forgotten scenes, 
only to have them condemned before the same 
tribunal, and thus the process goes on till it cul- 
minates in — 

other nations. So, the long-hoped-for millennium of 
the race, if it ever comes, must come in the inborn vir- 
tues of the children, springing from the regenerated 
hearts and congenitally improved natures of the parents. 
Regeneration can not be inborn ; but an improved sus- 
ceptibility of conscience may be. Communion with God 
can not be inherited ; but veneration for him, and benev- 
olence toward man, may be. "Between the inborn moral 
nature of the well-constituted civilized person and the 
brutal nature of the lowest savage, all question of educa- 
tion and cultivation put aside, the difference as a physi- 
cal fact is not less than that which often exists between 
one species of animals and another.'' (Maudsley's Phys- 
iology and Pathology of Mind, p. 143.) 



16 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

4. The fourth pre-regenerate fact, namely, re- 
pentance for sin. 

This differs from contrition, in that it passes 
from the state of grief into the act of seeking a 
remedy — ^in the abandonment of sin. 

Contrition may be long continued — shading 
years with sadness, and circling only in the same 
beaten track of sorrow and self-reproach. Ee- 
pentance has writhed under the lash — ^has 
groaned with the grief — and now emerges into the 
the realm of decisive self-emancipation. It is re- 
bellion against the tyranny of a life-time. It is 
a cutting loose from the anchorage of years. It 
is breaking away from associations that have be- 
come interlaced with all past experiences. It is 
abandoning, at sea, the only craft in which he 
has ever sailed. It is cutting the fabric away 
from the loom in which it has been woven. 

But while it is self-emancipation, it is not spir- 
itual deliverance. While it is rebellion, it is not 
successful revolution. While it is forsaking one 
anchorage, it is not grappling another. While it 
is breaking away from old associations, it is not 
the formation of regenerating substitutes. While 
it is abandoning a leaky and sinking craft, it is 
not walking the deck of a monarch of the deep. 
While it is cutting; the fabric from the loom 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE, 17 

which has fashioned life so sadly, it is not giving 
its unwoven threads to a better. 

5. The fifth pre-regenerate fact is, belief in 
Christ for present salvation. 

This belief is two-fold : (1) It is the intellec- 
tual credence given to his word, as a word of un- 
doubted veracity. (2) It is an actual, hearty re- 
liance of the soul upon Christ as a present Savior. 

It is the experience of a patient with his physi- 
cian in the crisis of a dangerous disease. He 
affirms most positively his ability to master the 
disorder, and the patient has perfect confidence 
in this statement of his skill. But this faith — 
while it is an important prerequisite to the right 
use of the means — will never, of itself, prove effi- 
cacious. 

The doctor prescribes. And now the real 
heart-faith of the patient is to be tested. If, 
without reserve or deviation, he throws himself 
upon the remedies specified, his faith is complete 
and the result is a cure. But if he reasons — = 
"The doctor certainly can cure me, but his medi- 
cines are bitter and his regime is painful, and I 
will try to get well without them" — he only 
proves the inefficiency of a merely intellectual 
faith, and his own folly. 

In Christian experience, the conviction of the 
absolute truthfulness of God's word is the imme- 



18 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

diate antecedent of a complete surrender to the 
power of his grace, and an actual claiming of his 
promised in-working. 

2. Con-regenerate Facts of Experience. 
1. The first con-regenerate fact of experience 
is, a mysterious, internal change or transformation. 
This change includes several things : 

(1) An assurance of pardon. The long cata- 
logue of transgressions that have stood like a 
horrid phalanx arrayed against the soul, seems 

. blotted out in a single instant. They may be re- 
membered in intellectual experiences, but their 
moral significance is gone — ^w^ashed away in the 
blood of atonement. Henceforth they are to ex- 
ist only as reminders of the infinite mercy that 
has provided a Substitute to bear their penalty. 
This assurance of pardon comes like a life-boat 
to the wrecked mariner — like a reprieve to the 
doomed and almost hopeless criminal. 

(2) A consciousness of freedom from guilt, that 
attests the validity of the assurance. The horrid 
nightmare that has pressed upon the soul is re- 
moved. The consciousness that has hitherto 
seemed charged with the venom of asps, and has 
seen Peace chased away with scorpion's stings, 
now sings to the soft lullaby of quietude of spirit. 
The dread specter that has haunted the soul 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 19 

througli all its guiltiness has disappeared, and in 
its place smiles the winning form of Innocence. 

(3) Then succeeds the absence of self-condem- 
nation. The soul's interests have been adjudi- 
cated at a higher tribunal than that of Conscience. 
The verdict of that higher court has set aside the 
judgments of the lower, in consideration of the 
special testimony of Faith in Christ. From this 
there is no appeal. The final decision has been 
reached in the court of last resort. The prisoner 
is acquitted. 

(4) Consciousness of love for God and his peo- 
ple. A new and strange experience ensues. 
Hitherto God has seemed so far oflT, so intangible, 
and withal so unloving, (for the feelings of the 
heart have belied the teaching of the creeds,) and 
perchance so frowning ! Now he is so nigh, so 
kind, so forgiving ! "We love him, because he 
first loved us." And when once the spiritual af- 
fections feel the impulsions of their true life, they 
reach out in afiinity after everything akin to their 
newly awakened sensibilities. Hence, having love 
to God, they "love the brethren" also. 

(5) Then follows an absolute and grateful sub- 
mission to all the will of God, Submission there 
has been in penitence, but it has been per force. 
It has been a yielding to the prescribed terms of 
a conqueror. It has been paying the price with- 



20 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

out which the desired benefit could not be secured. 
But now it is a submission which runs before all 
• terms ; a yielding that anticipates demands, and 
invites the test ; a glad, grateful, humble acqui- 
escence that joys in debasing self and exalting 
Christ. And it is as extensive as ifc is sincere. 
It revolts at insubordination. It weeps at the 
very shadow of inconstancy. It hates the thought 
of treachery. It loathes the mouthings of hy- 
pocrisy. To be His — entirely His — forever His, 
is the purpose of the soul, the longing of the af- 
fections. A submission more absolute cannot be 
conceived — more sincere cannot be possible. 

(6) A new-born zeal to do good is now dis- 
played. Not from considerations of reward, or 
motives of policy, but from the free, instinctive 
promptings of a loving heart. It is the out-gush- 
ing of welling sympathy — the breaking forth of 
pent-up good wishes — the consuming ardors of a 
world-embracing love. It is a feeling kindled by 
no transient emotion, seeking no momentary in- 
dulgence, and subsiding at no command of stolid 
Indifference ; but its flame has caught from the 
fires of eternal love, its designs • stretch through 
the life-time, and it sinks to quietness only in the 
anticipated repose of the everlasting rest. 

(7) Hatred of sin is now evinced. Not the 
tamo repugnance of mere distastefulness, nor the 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 21 

more positive antipathy of excited resentments ; 
but the deep abhorrence, the shuddering loathing 
with which purity detests and abominates sin ; a 
hatred that scorns compromise as treachery, and 
that is as exclusive as Life is of Death — as Heav- 
en is of Hell ! 

(8) ''Joy in the Holy Ghost,'' is another element 
of his experience. Not merely the gladness of 
deliverance, nor the added serenity of love, nor 
yet the superadded happiness of doing good ; but 
the transporting rapture, the blissful felicity, of a 
soul fired and thrilled and intoned with the ec- 
static exultation of a heaven-born joy ! 

2. The second con-regenerate fact of experi- 
ence is, an outward change corresponding with the 
inward — a change differing in prominence and 
intensity according to the degree of emotions ex- 
perienced. 

These emotions vary, from the calm that suc- 
ceeds the slightest troubled expression, on through 
the joy that beams where sadness lately sat, to 
that supernatural radiance that sometimes al- 
most transfigures humanity as it emerges from 
the dark realm of broken-hearted penitence into 
the cloudless sunlight of God's ineffable Love — - 
from the unuttered thoughts of gratitude that 
follow the receding convictions of the heart, on 
through the whispered breathings of joy that 



22 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

chase away the sighs of contrition, to the bursting 
gladness of the soul as unbidden hallelujahs break 
where only sobs were heard. The outward changes 
indicate the reality, while they cannot measure 
the extent of the inward work. 

3, POST-EEGENERATE FaCTS OF EXPERIENCE. 

1. A period of joyful triumph usually comes. 
One victory has been gained, so new, so strange, 

and w^ith such a consciousness of added power, 
that it seems as though Life's grand conquest 
had been achieved. This is rather a feeling than 
a conclusion. It may be a seeming rather than 
a belief; but it is the Soul's reveling in its new- 
found joy. The duration of this period may be 
greater or l^ss — dependent, perhaps, upon causes 
which we know not how to estimate — but sooner 
or later it is succeeded by— 

2. A sad discovery of indwelling sin. 

This discovery is usually made in the direction 
of previous indulgences, or of constitutional pre- 
dispositions, or of both combined. Example: 
Suppose a convert has been greatly addicted to the 
use of intoxicating drinks, and has a constitu- 
tional tendency to fretfulness and anger. He 
may feel no desire for his accustomed stimulants 
for a time, but sooner or later the appetite usually 
revives, and often seems the more rampant from 
its rest. Here, then, is an unlooked-for conflict ; 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 23 

and as it rages, his constitutional tendency feels 
the excitement, and fretfulness and perhaps anger 
supervene. 

3. Then arise consternation and confusion. 

With his discovery of this state of things comes 
a feeling of consternation which it is difficult to 
describe. He is not merely surprised-— he is 
alarmed and horrified. The regeneration in 
which he has joyed so much seems vitiated and 
belied. He has been conscious of placing himself 
unreservedly in the hands of his Savior, to be 
fashioned as He would. He has felt the regener- 
ating power of divine grace, and knows that a 
mighty change was accomplished within. 

But now the fair fabric of his hopes is all in 
ruins. The heart that he has not ceased to offer 
as a "living sacrifice," is polluted. The faith that 
he thought had emancipated him, lies quivering 
beneath the onslaught of his old masters. The 
blood that he supposed had saved, after all his 
effort and all his joy, has not saved. 

He is overwhelmed with confusion. He knows 
not what to think. What struggle can be success- 
fill, if this has not been ? What hope can he find 
in the midst of such defeat ? He sinks for a mo- 
ment in stupor, paralysis, and inaction. The bur- 
den of his disappointment presses him to the 
earth. He is amazed — confounded — overwhelmed. 



24 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

His disaster seems irreparable ; his loss, insuf- 
ferable. 

But lie has learned to pray ; and now some- 
thing draws him to the Mercy-seat. He falls be- 
fore it in deep abasement. His pleadings are 
sobs. His eloquence is helplessness. His faith is 
the refuge of despair. But anon a soothing con- 
sciousness of an unseen Presence re-inspirits him, 
and he is found — 

4. Ballying to the struggle. 

But it is the gathering energy of desperation. It 
is the blindfold advance in the teeth of the storm. 
It is the groping after a path in the darkness. And 
yet it has its mitigations and encouragements. 
There is an ever-present consciousness that he did 
not mean to raise the vile spirit that taunts him. 
And there is likewise a clear recollection that he 
did mean to be all God wanted him to be. Put- 
ting the consciousness and recollection together, 
he says : ^'It is not all my fault ; and though I 
cannot understand why God did not take all this 
away when I lay passive in his hands, yet he did 
much for me and will help me now." 

5. Then alternate victories and defeats super- 
vene. 

In his onward progress, victories and defeats 
alternately cheer and depress him. Sometimes he 
finds periods of conquest and joy, when he stands 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 25 

upon the mountain-top and exults in God his 
Savior. Then occurs an interval of doubts and 
sadness, in which he seems to have lost all that 
he had previously gained. Thus his life is check- 
ered over with the "ups and downs" of changing 
feeling. 

But, in the midst of all his discouragements, a 
careful analysis of experience will disclose the 
fact that there have been substantial gains. Weak 
points have been permanently strengthened. 
Some besetting infirmities have been disciplined 
away. Here and there a root-sin of the nature 
has been eradicated, or so deadened that its once 
frequent sprouting annoys but little. 

Yet there are points of character that have 
proved invulnerable. Prayers and efforts have 
been dashed against them in vain. As they lift 
their proud fronts in the foreground of introspec- 
tive vision, their very presence mocks his hopes. 

But now he is told that the "blood of Jesus 
cleanseth from all unrighteousness f and the bless- 
ed truth sinks down and down till it stands in the 
immediate presence of the deepest want of his na- 
ture. Its presence is inspiration. Its softest as- 
surances are electric thrills. Its calmly firm com- 
mands are trumpet-calls. The soul girds itself 
for another conflict, with victory in its eye. 

6. Then comes the cleansing. 



26 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

The work is begun by complete divestiture. 
The consecration of penitence is renewed with a 
deeper significance. The pledges of fidelity are 
re-uttered with a fuller meaning. 

"Thy sovereign right, thy gracious claim 
To every thought and every power, 
Our lives, to glorify thy name, 

We yield in this accepted hour. 
"Fill every chamber of the soul ; 

Fill all our thoughts, our passions fill ; 
Till, under thy supreme control, 
Submissive rests our cheerful will." 
Such the pledge and such the prayer ! Then, 
when the sacrifice is complete, Faith lays hold 
upon the Sanctifier, and cries : 

" 'Tis done ! Thou dost this moment come ; 
My longing soul is all thine own ; 
My heart is thy abiding home ; 

Henceforth I live for thee alone. 
"The altar sanctifies the gift — 

The blood insures the boon divine ; 
My outstretched hands to heaven I lift, 
And claim the Father's promise mine." 
In the light and joy of this new experience our 
convert lives an exulting life. His old inward 
foes are dead, and in triumph he sings : 
"When God is mine, and I am his, 
Of paradise possessed, 
I taste unutterable bliss. 
And everlasting rest." 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 27 

7. The re-awaJcenings, 

Strange that a work .so sincerely wrought, and 
apparently so deep and thorough, should prove 
still defective ! Yet, the experience of multitudes 
shows that what they were taught, and really 
supposed, to be the complete cleansing of their 
natures, still needs a supplementary work. 

Sooner or later his rest is disturbed ; not by 
the old besetments, for grace has conquered them. 
But the removal of these from the sphere of at- 
tention has allowed others, whose existence w^as 
perhaps unsuspected, to come into view ; and now 
he finds that his cleansing was only measured by 
his light and knowledge, and that as other things 
are revealed he needs a repetition of the process. 

8. The renewed cleansings. 

Again the process is repeated. And thus on 
through life, as fast as unholy tendencies are re- 
vealed, he applies to the sanctifying blood and 
feels its efficacy, till at last he sinks to rest — a 
holy man, sleeping in Jesus — ^because his precious 
blood has cleansed, not once nor twice, but every 
time that a new discovery of depravity prompted 
the prayer for aid. 

[Up to this point the word soul has been used as syn- 
onymous with spirit.] 



CHAPTER ni. 

THE FORCES ENGAGED. 

In seeking for the forces engaged in the work 
of Christian maturity, we may pass by, as not 
specially relevant, the pre-regenerate facts before 
stated, and come at once to the con-regenerate 
and post-regenerate facts as exhibiting the legiti- 
mate field for the operation of these forces, as 
"capacities to produce change." 

The first con-regenerate fact has been stated to 
be, "A mysterious internal change or transforma- 
tion," page 18, including— 

" Assurance of pardon ;" 

" Consciousness of freedom from guilt ;" 

" Absence of self-condemnation ;" 

" Consciousness of love for God and his people ;" 

"Absolute and grateful submission to God's 
will;" 

" A new-born zeal to do good ;" 

" Hatred of sin ;" and 

" Joy in the Holy Ghost." 

The second con-regenerate fact is, "An outward 
chauge corresponding with the inward." Here 
we find man's spirit-faculties engaged in harmony 
v/ith the energy of the Holy Spirit, and securing 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 29 

some degree of co-operation of his psychical (soul) 
and physical powers. The forces thus far dis- 
covered, then, are spirit^ psychic, and physical. 

But let us survey the post-regenerate facts, and 
see if they disclose any additional forces. Those 
facts have been given, in pages 22-27, as 

" A period of joyful triumph ;" 

" A sad discovery of indwelling sin ;" 

" Consternation and confusion ;" 

" Eallying to the struggle ;" 

" Alternate victories and defeats ;" 

" The cleansing ;" 

" The re-awakening ;" and 

" The renewed cleansing." 

A careful examination of these facts fails to 
discover any new force, inasmuch as the indwell- 
ing sin referred to is only a wrong state or condi- 
tion of some parts of man's nature. Before con- 
sidering these forces in detail, it will be necessary 
to discriminate between the different parts of 
man's nature, as spirit, soul, and body. 

The human spirit is that intelligent, self-con- 
scious, free and non-material manifestation of the 
divine power, which is individualized by the con- 
ditions of soul-development under the laws of hu- 
man propagation, and which is known to itself 
in its own consciousness, and is capable of think- 
ing that matter cannot think. It comprehends : — 



30 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Intelligence, including perception of facts and re- 
lations, and intuitions of truth ; character-affin- 
ities, including (originally) affectional communion 
with God ; intuitions of futurity ; desires and 
emotions ; the reversional faculty ; the ideational 
faculty ; habit-constitution ; moral free-will ; con- 
sciousness ; conscience ; and instincts. 

The human soul is the animal soul ennobled to 
be the complement of the human spirit, and con- 
stituted the spirit's medium of communication 
with the external world through the body. It 
comprehends : — Inferior intelligence, embracing 
sense-perceptions and adaptive reason; desires 
and emotions ; habit-susceptibility ; imagination ; 
affections ; instincts ; memory ; and will. 

The difference, therefore, is this : 

First, that which they seem to possess in com- 
mon is of a much higher order in the spirit than 
in the soul.— E. g. — (1) Each has intelligence ; 
but, while the soul's intelligence is only that of 
sense-perception, and adaptive reason, that of 
the spirit embraces perception of facts and rela- 
tions and intuitions of truth. (2) Both have af- 
fections ; but, while those of the soul are merely 
personal, those of the spirit rise to the moral 
grandeur of character-affinities, ^and communion 
with God. (3) Both have desires and emotions ; 
but those of the soul relate only to its instincts, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 31 

while those of the spirit soar to the altitude of 
its spiritual capacities, and thrill its consciousness 
and conscience through. (4) Both have memory; 
but that of the soul treasures only facts of sense- 
experience, while that of the spirit reverts to and 
recalls all the past of which it has knowledge — 
as well its truths and relations, as its facts. (5) 
Both have imagination ; but, while that of the 
soul is little more than false or whimsical percep- 
tions, that of the spirit is endowed with all the 
ideationally creative powers of poesy and art. 
(6). Both have will ; but, while that of the soul 
is restricted to a choice of means to a desired end, 
that of the spirit is alternative in reference to 
right and wrong, good and evil, the true and the 
false. (7) Both have instincts ; but, while that 
of the soul has respect only to self-existence, self- 
enjoyment, and the propagation of the species, 
that of the spirit comprehends the lofty possibil- 
ities of the consciously moral and possibly immor- 
tal. (8) Both have habits ; but, while those of 
the soul pertain only to the physical and sense- 
life, those of the spirit develop the grandest pos- 
sibilities of spiritual communion and immortal 
destiny. 

Second, the spirit has three endowments which 
have no copy, however feeble, in the soul, viz., 
intuitions of futurity , consciousness, iind conscience. 



32 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

True, some might suppose, on first thought, that 
the winter food-provisions of some animals, and 
the nest and house-building propensities of some 
birds and animals, indicate an instinct of futu- 
rity in them, which, if existing, certainly proves 
a possibility of the same in the human soul. 
Also, that the shame which dogs and elephants 
seem to feel when rebuked, indicates a kind of 
conscience, while their apparently cherished re- 
sentments and measured revenge proclaim a con- 
sciousness of having been wronged. 

In reply, it may be urged that animals have no 
apprehension of coming wants, but simply obey 
a present impulse in those acts that seem to be 
thus on-looking. As to the shame referred to, its 
external developments are not at all unlike sim- 
ple fear in the same animals ; hence, it is to be 
regarded as no more than fear. That the resent- 
ments and revenge are purely instinctive, appears 
from the fact that they will arise just as soon, 
upon occasion, when the animal is itself encroach- 
ing upoii the rights of others, as when acting 
simply upon the defensive. Hence we conclude 
that those three endowments are the regal quali- 
ties of spirit, especially differentiating it from 
soul. 

The human body is the material frame exhib- 
iting the organizing power of the soul-life in the 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 83 

functions of absorption, assimilation, circulation, 
nutrition, excretion, reproduction, respiration or 
calorification, motion, habit-evolution, and spirit- 
unfoldment. 

In these we find the three classes of forces al- 
ready named : 

1. Spirit-forces, 

These embrace such energies of the Divine Na- 
ture as are concerned in human redemption ; and 
likewise the energies of the particular human 
spirit, which is passing through the several 
changes already denoted as facts of experience. 
They also embrace those energies employed by 
Satan to hinder the work. 

2. Psychical forces. 

These include all the soul-forces involved in 
these facts. 

3. Physical forces. 

The physical forces employed are all those 
powers of the body which, as instruments of the 
soul and spirit, are with greater or less success 
used in the prosecution of the grand aim of life ; 
and likewise those perverted energies (if such 
there be) which cannot be constrained into the 
service of Holiness. These powers may be class- 
ified thus : 

1. Vital force — maintaining the ordinary in- 



34 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

voluntary processes of life, viz., respiration, cir- 
culation, nutrition, growth, periodicity, etc. 

2. Sensibility-co-operating force — operating 
through sensitive nerve-vitality. 

3. Automatic, or reflex-activity force — acting 
immediately, upon occasion, without awaiting the 
intervention of any mental process, as in involun- 
tary starts from falling, winking, dropping hot 
bodies, etc., which are often accomplished before 
thought has time to begin, and therefore before 
judgment can decide or will command. 

Just here we are met by a fact of fundamental 
importance, namely: There is a law of activ- 
ity, down deep amid the foundation principles of 
being, deeper than depravity, deeper than purity, 
helow all moral distinctions, which may be stated 
thus : Any mental action, voluntarily repeated, in- 
duces a spontaneous tendency to its continued re- 
petition. It is the law of spirit- Aa&i^. Comple- 
mental to this law of spirit-activity is a psychical 
susceptibility, and also a structural adaptability 
of brain and nerves, furnishing the physical con- 
ditions for the development of habit, which is, 
in general terms, only a customary mode of action 
by the operation of this law and its correspond- 
ing psychical and structural susceptibility. 

The importance of this fact in common life can 
scarcely be overestimated, because it is by it that 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 35 

the marvelous acquisitions of skill in the arts, 
etc., are possible, as well as by it that men be- 
come addicted to and confirmed in those practices 
of good or evil which, to a great extent, make 
reputation and give permanence to character. 

Physiologically speaking, as will more clearly 
appear further on. Habit may be defined as a 
secondary automatie movement or reflex action of a 
nervous center and its efferent nerves. And whether 
it be induced by an anatomical change of the 
tissue, or whether its modus operandi must re- 
main a profound secret, the fact is the same — 
there is a secondary automatic movement estab- 
lished, which is in direct physical correspondence 
with the psychic as well as psychologoical law, 
namely: Any mental action voluntarily repeated 
induces a spontaneous tendency to its continued 
repetition ; and the three combined in an estab- 
lished mode of action constitute a habit of the 
life. "Habit constitutes a true return to autom- 
atism, and it is never perfect unless when it is en- 
tirely unconscious." (Rihot, Heredity, p. 227.) 

4. Will-co-operating force — largely muscular 
contractile energy, manifested through motor 
nerve-vitality. 

5. Mind-conditionating force — a physical sta- 
tus determining or precluding certain mental 
manifestations, as when the brain is narcotized or 



36 CHRISTIAM HOLINESS. 

stimulated by certain drugs into the state referred 
to. 

In order to a proper understanding of this part 
of the subject, it will be necessary to give some 
details of structure, and dwell at considerable 
length upon the various functions of the brain 
and nervous system. But before doing this, we 
wish most emphatically to disclaim all sympathy 
with the materialistic speculations to which the 
science of physiology has given rise, and at the 
same time to enter a most positive demurrer to 
the dogmatic conservatism that trembles in terror 
at every approach of the glass of the microscop- 
ist or knife of the anatomist. Let Science speak, 
and let her voice be heard, Avhether her inter- 
preter be Jew or Gentile, Believer or Atheist ; 
only let us be sure to separate her facts and de- 
ductions from the assumptions and non-author- 
ized deductions of speculatists, of whatever school 
of thought. 

The nervous system of man is divided into two 
great branches, distinguished by their respective 
functions. That portion which presides over the 
locomotory, respiratory, sensitive, and intellectual 
functions, is called the cerebro-spinal system ; 
w^hile that which controls the functions of the 
vegetative life, i. e., absorption, assimilation, cir- 
culation, nutrition, excretion, and reproduction, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEEIENCE. 37 

is designated as the ganglionic, or great sympa- 
thetic system, the object of which seems to be, to 
associate the different parts of the body in such a 
manner that stimulus applied to one organ may 
excite the activity of another, and that by a func- 
tion which is neither physical nor chemical, but 
vital. 

In the composition of the nervous system are 
two kinds of tissues, distinguished from each 
other by their color, structure, and mode of ac- 
tion : 

(1) White substance or fibrous tissue, ultimate 
nervous filaments or threads averaging about a 
ten-thousandth of an inch in diameter in the 
brain and spinal cord, and about a two thousandth 
of an inch in the nerves. 

(2) Gray substance, called also cineritious mat- 
ter or vesicular neurine, found in the center of 
the spinal cord, at the base of the brain in iso- 
lated masses, as a continuous layer on the surface 
of the upper and middle brain, (cerebrum and 
cerebellum,) and in the ganglia of the great sym- 
pathetic. This substance consists of vesicles or 
cells from a four-thousandth to a three-hundredth 
of an inch in diameter, of various forms and 
sizes, imbedded in a grayish, granular, intercell- 
ular substance, (frequently containing granules 
of grayish coloring matter,) intermingled with 



38 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

nervous filaments originating from, or terminating 
in, the nerve-cells. Every collection of such gray 
matter is called a ganglion or nervous center, the 
special function of which is to receive impressions 
conveyed to it by the nervous filaments, and send 
out through them answering impulses to be trans- 
mitted to distant organs. A bundle of nervous 
filaments enveloped in a sheath of tough tissue — 
similar in constitution to that of sinews and liga- 
ments — looks like fibers of spun glass, and is 
called a nerve. 

In structure, these filaments possess the follow- 
ing properties : 

A. A colorless, transparent, tubular mem- 
brane, in the cavity of which is lodged — 

B. A semi-fluid, tubular marrow, which co- 
agulates soon after death, and presents a peculiar 
glistening aspect, and is known as the ^^white sub- 
stance of Schwami,'' This contains in its cavity — 

C. A narrow, ribbon-shaped cord, firm, semi- 
transparent, of a grayish color, known as the axis- 
cylinder, and is the only active element of the 
nerve. Its use is simply as an organ of trans- 
mission. The direction of the transmission has 
been taken as the ground of distinction between 
the two classes of nerves. When one is distrib- 
uted upon an expanded surface and is capable 
of transmitting inwardly to the nervous center 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 39 

any impression induced by the application of any 
physical stimulus to that surface, it is called a 
nerve of sensation, or sensitive or afferent nerve. 
When a nerve is distributed among muscular fi- 
bers and is capable of causing muscular contrac- 
tion by carrying the impulse outward from the 
nervous center, it is called an excitor, or motor, 
or efferent nerve. And the impulse thus returned 
by the ganglion or center, in answer to a stimulus 
or impression sent to it, is called its reaction or 
reflex action. Bundles of nervous filaments con- 
necting different ganglia are called commissures. 

Thus the entire nervous system is made up of 
ganglia, commissures, and nerves— the two latter 
identical in anatomical character. The office of 
nervous filaments is to conduct an influence along 
their axis longitudinally, either from periphery 
(outside) to center, as in the case of nerves of 
the senses, or from center to periphery, as in the 
case of nerves which convey the mandates of the 
will to the muscles. In this office of conduction 
the whole extent of nerve-fiber is the seat of an 
active molecular change. 

Confining our attention now to the cerebro- 
spinal system, we find it to consist of the follow- 
ing parts, namely ; 

A, The spinal cord — ^lodged within the canal 



40 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

of the back-bone, and extending from the base of 
the skull to about the origin of the lowest rib. 

B, The medulla oblongata — apparently a con- 
tinuation of the spinal cord within the head. 

C, The sensory ganglia — several masses of 
nerve-substance arranged in pairs along the floor 
of the skull. 

D. The cerebellum, or little brain — situated 
above and behind the medulla. 

E. The cerebrum, or great brain — two large 
convoluted lobes superimposed above all the 
others, and called hemispheres. 

These five centers of nervous substance know^n 
as ganglia, each with its distinct function, are 
bound together into one system. The nervous 
appliances by which each center is able to dis- 
charge its functions are, in order, as follows : 

a. From the spinal cord are given ofl* thirty- 
one pairs of nerves — each arising by two roots 
from the cord itself — which combine upon leaving 
the spinal column, and are distributed to the mus- 
cles and skin of the body and limbs, serving the 
functions of motion and sensation, including the 
special sense of touch. The posterior of the two 
roots serves the purpose of sensation, and the an- 
terior of motion ; but when combined into one 
nerve-cord, it possesses both of these characteris- 
tics. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 41 

The functions of the spinal cord are three-fold : 
(a) That of a nerve-center, i, e., a power of re- 
ceiving impressions conveyed to it as a stimulus 
from without, and reflecting them immediately 
through the motor nerves without the judgment 
or co-operation of the brain, causing adaptive 
movements independently of consciousness or 
volition, by a process purely physical. This is 
proved by the fact that in cases of division of the 
cord below the point where the respiratory nerves 
are given off, both voluntary motion and sensation 
cease ; yet a slight touch of the foot will cause it 
to be drawn up, although the man himself is un- 
conscious of the act. So a decapitated frog will, 
with one of its feet, displace an irritating agent 
applied to its body ; and a centipede, with a sec- 
tion of the spinal cord removed from the middle 
of the trunk, and the hinder legs consequently 
completely paralyzed, will continue to move them, 
often forcing itself in directions in which it does 
not desire to go, as indicated by the opposing 
movements of the fore legs which are still under 
control of the will. In a state of health, the re- 
actions of the spinal cord are often so sudden that 
the movements are executed before we feel any 
painful sensation, or even fairly comprehend why 
they take place, as in impulsive withdrawal of 
the hand from a heated body ; also the involun- 



42 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

tary throwing of the limbs into a position to 
break a sudden fall. (Dalton's Human Physiol- 
ogy^ 

Concerning these well established facts, Mr. 
Maudsley {Physiolo-gy and Pathology of Mind, p. 
67) thus reasons : " The spinal cord has, so to 
speak, its memory ; the reaction which it displays, 
in consequence of a particular impression con- 
veyed to it from without, does not vanish issueless, 
leaving the ganglionic cells unmodified after its 
force has been expended. With the display of 
energy there is a coincident change or waste of 
nervous elements ; . . . and the nutritive repair, 
replacing the loss which has been made, must 
plainly take the form or pattern created by 
the energy and coincident material change. 
Thereby the definite activity is to some extent re- 
alized or emhodied in the structure of the spinal 
cord, existing there for the future as a motor re- 
siduum, or as, so to speak, a potential or abstract 
movement ; and accordingly there is a tendency 
to the recurrence of the particular activity — a 
tendency which becomes stronger with every re- 
petition of it, . . . until at last they [the particu- 
lar activities or movements] are firmly fixed in 
the constitution of the cord, become a part of the 
faculty of it, and may be accomplished without 
efibrt or even without consciousness ; — they are 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 43 

the secondary or acquired automatic acts, as de- 
scribed by Hartly." 

And Hartly, in his " Theory of the Human 
Mind/' very sensibly declares that the acts just 
alluded to "are rather to be ascribed to the body 
than the mind," because they are the results of 
these functions of nerve-vesicles— the active ele- 
ment of nerve-centers. 

There seems to be a triple object of this ar- 
rangement : ((a)) To permit the escape of an 
influence entering by a nerve-filament, into a 
a number of diverging tracks. ((6)) To combine 
such entering influences into a new result, ((c)) 
By permitting lateral diffusion, to take off* and 
keep in store, for a certain duration, a part of the 
passing influences, thus retaining a residuum of 
the impressions and entitling these centers to the 
name of registering ganglia. This susceptibility 
is the great fact by which Habit becomes possible. 

" In the different ganglionic centers is a specific 
power of reaction to certain impressions made 
upon organs specially adapted to receive them ; 
the waste following activity is restored by nutri- 
tion, and a trace or residuum remains embodied 
in the constitution of the nervous center, becom- 
ing more complete and distinct with each succeed- 
ing repetition of the impression ; an acquired 
nature is grafted on the original nature of the 



44 CHEISTIAN HOLINESS. 

cell by virtue of its plastic power." {Maudslcy, 
P. and P. of Mind, p. 91.) 

(6) The second function of the spinal cord is 
that of an intermuntiant nerve, i. e., a nerve of 
communication through its commissures between 
its own nerves and the higher nervous centers, by 
which it passes on the effect of the outward stim- 
ulus to the higher centers, and in return receives 
orders from them to be transmitted to the efferent 
or outward discharging nerves. It is by this 
function that the brain receives the impressions 
made upon the skin, (that may have been already 
responded to by a reaction of the cord causing 
some muscular movements,) and recognizes them 
in consciousness, and perhaps superadds some vol- 
untary actions. 

(c) The third function of the spinal cord is to 
furnish a pathway for certain nervous channels 
of sensation between the cerebral sensorium, i. e., 
the cerebral centers, and the nerves of sensation 
and motion leading to different portions of the 
body. 

The medulla is an extension of the spinal cord, 
about 1\ inches long, within the head. Its func- 
tion is to control respiration by a reflex action 
occasioned by the stimulus of carbonic acid in 
the pulmonary vessels and air cells. It also gov- 
erns deglutition, simple exclamation, sneezing. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 45 

coughing and yawning, and by means of the au- 
ditory and gustatory nerves springing from it 
controls the senses of hearing and taste, and "also 
presides over those muscular contractions which 
constitute the play of the physiognomy." {Bibot) 

Passing upward and forward from the medulla, 
we find a glanglion called tuber annulare — some- 
times called the "fourth pair" — and the sensorium 
commune, the function of which is to catch the 
impressions conveyed inward through the nerves, 
and convert them into conscious sensations, the re- 
flex action from which takes the form of volun- 
tary impulses designed to stimulate the muscles to 
contraction. {Dalton's Physiology, p. 423.) 

" The natural course of a stimulus, all the force 
of which is not reflected upon an efferent nerve 
in the spinal centers, is upwards to the sensorium 
commune, where it becomes the occasion of a 
new order of phenomena ; and, as Pfluger has 
shown, the law of extension of reflex action, ex- 
cited by a spinal nerve, observably is from below 
upwards to the medulla. Having arrived at the 
ganglionic cells of the sensorium commune, the 
stimulus may be at once reflected on a motor 
nerve, for which there is provision in a direct 
physical path, and involuntary movements — sen- 
sori-motor — may thus take place in answer to a 
sensation, just as involuntary movements take 



46 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

place from the spinal centers without any sensa- 
tion." (Maiidsley, Physiology and Pathology of 
Mind, p. 89.) So, this sensori-motor reaction 
may be excited by " sensation from within the 
body — by the organic stimuli" — as well as by 
sensations from without. " When the influence 
of the higher nervous centers" (i. e., the hemis- 
pheres) " is weakened by disease, or when an or- 
ganic stimulus has an abnormal activity, as often 
happens in insanity, we sometimes see the instinct 
for food or the sexual instinct manifested with an 
utter shamelessness. . . . The great revolution ef- 
fected in the mental nature of man at the time 
when the organs of reproduction come into func- 
tional activity, aflbrds a striking illustration of a 
physiological effect which in less degree is com- 
mon to all the organic stimuli." {Ibid, p. 95.) 
The sensori-motor reaction may be excited like- 
wise by " a stimulus descending from above. An 
idea, or an impulse of the will, coming from the 
higher nervous centers" (^. e., the hemispheres,) 
" may act upon the ganglionic secondary centers" 
(as e. g., the sensorium commune,) " and call forth 
those movements which are commonly reflex to 
impressions from without." (Ibid, p. 97.) An 
example of this would be, dreams of frightful ob- 
jects producing starts and screams, as if such 
objects were really in sight. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 47 

Passing upward again we reach four little 
bodies, the tuherciila quadrigemina, or optie gan- 
glia, giving origin to the optic nerve, and presid- 
ing over the sense of sight. By their reflex ac- 
tion the quantity of light admitted to the eye is 
regulated (by its expansion and contraction) to 
suit the sensibility of the retina. Continuing up- 
ward and forward onpe more, we come to the op- 
tic thalami, possessing a peculiar crossed action 
upon the voluntary movements, and beyond this 
but little understood. Directly in front of the 
optic thalami are the corpora striata — like that, 
in functions but little known, but supposed to have 
some connection with sensation and volition. 
Far in front of the corpora striata lies the olfac- 
tory ganglion presiding over the sense of smell. 

Dr. Carpenter has shown the very great prob- 
ability that the sensory ganglia are a sensorium 
commune through which the mind becomes con- 
scious of all its states as well as of its sensations ; 
and that, as the conditions of sensational con- 
sciousness are, 1st, an impression on the peri- 
pheral (outward) expansion of a sensitive nerve, 
2nd, the transmission of nervous force along the 
nerve, and 3d, an organic change in the senso- 
rium ; so, the consciousness of other mental states 
requires, 1st, an impression on the expanded 
sheet of gray matter in the convolutions of the 



48 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

hemispheres at the peripheral ends of the nerve- 
fibers which radiate from the sensory ganglia, 
2nd, the transmission of nervous force from this 
gray matter, as the instrument of the mental fac- 
ulties, to the sensory ganglia, and 3d, an organic 
change in the latter as the immediate antecedent 
of consciousness. 

The sensory ganglia are therefore — 

1st, Seats of sensational consciousness. 

2nd, Seats of the consciousness of all our mental 
states. 

3d, Centers of sensori-reflex movements. 

4th, They supply the nervous force which bears 
the mandates of the will to the muscles of the 
body ; since it has been proved by Sir Charles 
Bell and C. Bernard that no voluntary move- 
ment can be performed without their intervening 
action. 

Directly in the rear of the " fourth pair" is the 
cerebellum, highly convoluted and containing a 
large amount of gray matter. Its function is to 
co-ordinate voluntary movements. As all mus- 
cular movements are efiected by several muscles 
acting in harmony, and the number and compli- 
cation of these associated actions are very great 
in man, some organ must preside over and co- 
ordinate these actions. Hence this function is 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 49 

assigned to the most important ganglion in the 
brain, save one. 

Roofing all the others, and constituting about 
nine-tenths of the brain, are the hemispheres or 
cerebrum, the highest of the nervous centers, con- 
sisting of a layer three-sixteenths of an inch 
thick, of gray substance, of great superficial ex- 
tent, and thrown into irregular folds or convolu- 
tions. Its function is to act as the organ of the 
intellectual and moral faculties. This is proved 
by several classes of facts. E. g. In fishes, rep- 
tiles, birds, and quadrupeds, the size of the hem- 
ispheres is an exact index of their teachable in- 
telligence. On removing the hemisphere of a 
pigeon, association of ideas, perception of the re- 
lation of external objects, and memory are de- 
stroyed ; while sight, hearing, sensibility, and 
will remain. Intelligence, memory, and judg- 
ment are also destroyed in man, in apoplexy and 
softening of the brain ; while other functions not 
intellectual may still remain. (Dalton^s Physiol- 
ogy, p. 407.) 

The hemispheres are therefore the material in- 
struments through which the immaterial spirit 
operates. Just as visual consciousness requires 
that an impression be made upon the retina, and 
then be transmitted to the sensorium and efiect 
molecular changes therein ; so the consciousness 



50 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

of ideas requires that the immaterial spirit make 
an impression upon the peripheries of the nerves 
leading to the sensorium commune, that this im- 
pression be transmitted, and that the molecular 
change ensue therein. In both cases the impress- 
ing agent is extraneous to the nervous instru- 
ment ; but in the first it is physical, and in the 
second it is spirit. 

The hemispheres, too, have their reflex action, 
in which ideas are followed by appropriate ac- 
tions, provided, the will be in abeyance. The 
will or executive function of the spirit seems to 
stand to the hemispheres in the place of a higher 
nervous center. This reflex action is especially 
apparent when the power of the will over the 
current of thought is suspended, without the loss 
of power of voluntary motion, as in persons who 
are "hypnotized,'' i. e., in a mesmeric sleep. 

" The cortical [external, rind-like] cells of the 
hemispheres, like the ganglionic cells of the sen- 
sory centers and of the spinal cord, may certainly 
act as nervous centers of independent reaction. 
Without any volition, or even in direct defiance 
of volitional efibrt, an idea which has become ac- 
tive may pass outwards, and produce movements, 
or some other efiect upon the body. The sudden- 
ly excited idea of the ludicrous, for example, 
causes involuntary laughter ; the idea of an in- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 51 

suit, a quick movement of retaliation ; the idea 
of a beautiful woman, a glow of amatorial pas- 
sion ; the idea of a great impending danger, or of 
a sudden terrible affliction, serious or even fatal 
disturbance of the organic life ; the idea of an 
object, sometimes an actual hallucination." 
(Maudsley, P. and P. of Mind, p. 108.) The di- 
rection which these reactions may take are down- 
wards upon the motor centers, causing muscular 
movements either voluntary or involuntary; 
downwards upon the sensory ganglia, producing 
sensations as of nausea at the thought of some 
sickening taste ; downwards upon the functions 
of nutrition and secretion, as the idea of food 
causing a flow of saliva ; a sympathetic idea, a 
flow of tears ; (" and the idea that a structural 
defect will certainly be removed by a particular 
act does sometimes so affect the organic action of 
the part as to produce a cure." Ibid, p. 116 ;) or, 
they may pass from cell to cell of the cortical 
centers (of the hemispheres) and be manifested in 
reflection, and " as the final result of reflection, 
there may still be a reaction downwards, and 
consequent outward activity. When that takes 
place it is volitional activity." (Ibid, p. 125.) 

" In so far as an idea is attended with some 
feeling, whether of pleasure or of pain, or of a 
more special character, it is to that extent emo- 



52 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

tional ; and if tlie feeling preponderate, the idea 
is obscured, and the state of mind is then called 
an emotion or a passion." (Ibid, p. 129.) As 
there are two elements which go to the production 
of an emotion — namely, the organic element and 
the external stimulus — the character of the emo- 
tional result will depend upon the condition of the 
organic element as well as upon the nature of the 
stimulus. " The original nature of nerve-element 
is, however, as nothing in the determination of 
the special character of the higher emotions, com- 
pared with its acquired nature as this has been 
slowly organized in relation to the circumstances 
of life.'^ {^Ibid, p. 136.) 

"As we justly speak of the tone of the spinal 
cord, by the variations of which its reactions are 
so much affected, so we may fairly also speak of 
a psychical tone, the tone of the supreme nervous 
centers, \i, e,, the hemispheres] the variations of 
which so greatly affect the character of the men- 
tal states that supervene. And as it appeared 
when treating of the spinal cord that, apart from 
its original nature and accidental causes of dis- 
turbance, the tone of it was determined by the 
totality of impressions made upon it, and of mo- 
tor reactions thereto, which had been organized 
in its constitution as faculties ; so with regard to 
the supreme centers of our mental life, from the 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 53 

residua of past thoughts, feelings, and actions, 
which have been organized as mental faculties, 
there results a certain psychical tone in each in- 
dividual." {Ibid^ p. 137.) "The residua of vo- 
litions, like the residua of sensations or ideas, 
remain in the mind and render future volitions of 
a like kind more easy and more definite." . . . 
" Conscious acquisition becomes unconscious pow- 
er ; and by an organic assimilation of some kind, 
the will even becomes in certain relations auto- 
matic." {Ibid, p. 157.) 

The foregoing statements are sufiiciently ex- 
plicit in regard to all the forms of physical force 
before enumerated, except that which has been 
denominated mind-conditionating force. When 
we remember that mentality is dependent upon 
the adequate supply of pure blood to the brain, 
and that changes in the chemical constituents of 
the blood either exalt, enfeeble, or suspend men- 
tal action — an excess of oxygen intensifying it, a 
deficiency of phosphorus or oxygen depressing it, 
and the pressure in large quantities of alcohol, opi- 
um, or carbon, holding in abeyance or utterly de- 
stroying it — -we cannot question the reality of such 
a thought-modifying physical state as practically 
amounts to a mind-conditionating force, not as a 
unit, but as producing the efiects that a unit of 
energy might, viz., modification of mental action. 



54 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

To such an extent have experiments in this direc- 
tion been carried, that an eminent physician 
claimed to be able to produce particular classes 
of mental states in his patients simply by admin- 
istering certain drugs. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE PRINCIPLES CONCERNED. 

Eecalling just here the definition of Principles 
as given on page 4 and illustrated on page 2, as 
those elemental or constitutional conditions by 
which only it is possible for the spiritual, psychi- 
cal, and physical forces to act at all in the direc- 
tion of salvation, we proceed to inquire : What 
Principles furnish the conditions for the action of 
the foregoing forces ? The answer evidently is — 

1. Those which relate to God, 

Elemental or constitutional conditions are none 
other than the nature itself imposes when that 
nature is absolute ; therefore, in seeking for the 
conditionating elements in question, we must find 
them in the attributes of the Divine Nature. 
These attributes necessitate that whatever God 
does, shall be marked by Goodness, Eighteous- 
ness, Holiness, and Benevolence. Hence these 
qualities must stand hedging about all his acts in 
human Eedemption, and constitute just so many 
impassable barriers defining the channels of his 
possible activity. 

One of the most obvious principles growing out 



56 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

of the exercise of those qualities is what may be 
termed — 

1. God's equity in grace, 

" He is not a respecter of persons." Acts 10 : 
34. By this is meant that he does not show par- 
tiality to any in the matter of personal salvation. 

This insures not only that exact and equal 
justice shall be administered to all according 
to their actual merit or demerit, but also, that 
if any personal free gift be requisite to the sal- 
vation of the individuals of the race, it shall 
be conferred alike upon all those individuals if 
it be upon any ; because, when all are equally 
helpless and equally unworthy, to extend the 
needed aid to some and not to others would 
be exhibiting a partiality toward the favored 
ones which could be based upon no reason, 
and therefore would be unjustifiable, inasmuch as 
Divine Benevolence must regard all with a like 
pity, and Omniscience could find no special ground 
of preference. Hence, " The true Light lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world." John 1 : 9. 

This ]3rinciple does not inhibit any bestowment 
of favors of a personal character upon individ- 
uals, provided those favors be not of such a nature 
as that deprivation of them shall bar the salva- 
tion of those who are not thus specially honored. 
E. g. The inspiration of the Prophets was un- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 57 

doubtedly a signal mark of divine approval ; but 
it was not needed by others as a personal gift, in 
order to enable them to work out their salvation ; 
hence no injustice was done them in not bestow- 
ing it upon them as well as upon those who ac- 
tually received it. 

2. Another principle recognizes different de- 
grees of moral purity as consistent with a Christian 
character in this life. 

No one acquainted with the interior life of be- 
lievers can doubt that the same individual may 
live in communion with God through varying 
shades of moral purity from regeneration up to 
the highest attainments of grace. Nor, if human 
testimony is of any worth, can it be doubted that 
different persons may stand, relatively to each 
other, in vastly diverse conditions of spiritual ad- 
vancement, yet all have the evidence that they 
please God. 

Such being the facts, there must be a principle 
adjusted to them ; and as philosophy requires us 
to seek the simplest principle consistent with the 
facts, that is found in the principle here an- 
nounced, because this is necessarily implied, what- 
ever other one may be supposed. 

If proof from the Scriptures be needed, we 
have but to cite the fact that the Thessalonians 
were regarded by the apostle as already in a very 



58 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

commendable state ; for, in his first Epistle to 
them he credits them with thirteen characteris- 
tics as follows: (1) Elected of God, 1 : 4. (2) 
Having "received the word in much affliction," 
(persecution,) 1 : 6. (3) Having received it "with 
joy of the Holy Ghost," 1 : 6. (4) Having be- 
come " followers of himself and of God," being 
"turned from idols to serve the living and true 
God," 1 : 9. (5) Being " in God the Father and in 
the Lord Jesus Christ," 1 : 1. <(6) Having a "work 
of faith and labor of love, and patience of hope in 
our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 : 3. (7) Being " en- 
samples to all that believe in Macedonia and 
Achaia," 1 : 7. (8) Having " sounded out the 
word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and 
Achaia, but also in every place" their " faith to 
God-ward spread abroad," 1 : 8. (9) The word 
" efiectually working" in them, 2:13. (10) Their 
brotherly love being shown " toward all the breth- 
ren in Macedonia," 4 : 10. (11) They being "not 
in darkness" but "children of the light," 5: 5. 
(12) Comforting themselves together, and edify- 
ing one another, 5 : 11. (13) They being Paul's 
hope, his joy, and his crown of rejoicing, (glory- 
ing,) 2: 19. 

To such Christians Paul wrote : " Now the God 
of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may 
your whole nature, your spirit and soul and body, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 59 

be preserved blameless when you stand before 
our Lord Jesus Christ at his appearing. Faith- 
ful is He who calls you; He will fulfill my 
prayer." 1 Thess. 5 : 23, 24 (Conybeare and 
Howson's translation.) 

Commendable as their experience was, he here 
prays for something in advance of it. Their then 
experience certainly was consistent with a Chris- 
tian character, and the prayed-for advance could 
not be less so ; hence, the conclusion is unavoida- 
ble, viz. — Difierent degrees of moral purity are 
consistent with a Christian character. 

3. The third principle is, the incompatibility of 
present justification with a present state of moral 
unfitness for the heavenly world, 

"Who shall lay anything to the charge of 
God's elect ? It is God that justifieth. Who is 
he that condemneth ?" is the triumphant inquiry 
of the apostle. This was a conclusion from his 
sublime postulate of faith : " There is now no 
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, 
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
hath made me free from the law of sin and 
death.'' Eom. 8 : 1-2. 

The word ^txaicov, dikaion, here rendered ''justi- 
fieth,^' signifies justification by faith, as is evident 
from the apostle's use of it in other places. E. g. 



60 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Acts 13 : 39. Eom. 2 : 13 ; 3 : 20, 24, 26, 28, 30 ; 
4: 2, 3, 5 ; 5 : 1, 9. Gal. 2 : 16; 3 : 11, 24. It 
is everywhere regarded as the exact opposite of 
condemnation ; so that, to affirm of any one that 
he is justified in any particular, and, at the same 
time, is condemned in the same particular, is con- 
tradictory and absurd. 

But what is meant by justification by faith ? 
To regard and treat one as righteous, by reckon- 
ing his faith as righteousness. (See Bobinson^s 
Lexicon under dtxatoco^ dikaioo.) Now the ques- 
tion comes : Can spotless righteousness be com- 
patible with a state of unfitness for the home of 
glorified saints ? 

Reasoning from the Divine attributes con- 
cerned, we see no reason for supposing that any 
qualification other than those embraced in a char- 
acter of righteousness can be required. How, 
then, can that which the God of righteousness has 
accepted as the full equivalent up to that period 
of such a life of righteousness — viz., the faith 
which justifies — be less perfectly preparative for 
heavenly enjoyment than the righteous life itself 
would be ? Surely, it is incumbent upon those 
who may oppose this view to show some elemental 
deficiency, or some want of adaptation in the 
equivalent, as a cause of its assumed inefficiency. 
Until that is done, we are constrained to regard 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 61 

a state of present justification as tantamount to a 
state of present fitness for glorification. 

Moreover, the obj ector must meet another dif- 
ficulty of no less magnitude, viz., the conscious- 
ness of the justified spirit of present response to 
God's claims, up to the highest point of light and 
ability. Now, to assume that such consciousness 
may co-exist with a state of unfitness for heaven 
—should God be pleased immediately to make 
such a transfer — ^is to confuse all our ideas of fit- 
ness in the case, and elevate a mere theological 
dogma to the detriment if not destruction of all 
assurance drawn from consciousness and expe- 
rience. 

4. The fourth principle necessarily involved, 
fixes the grand requisite for admission into heaven:* 
— ^^ Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy^ 
" According as he hath chosen us in him before 
the foundation of the world, that we should be 
holy and without blame before him in love.'' 
Eph. 1:4. " Follow peace with all men and 
holiness, without which [holiness — see Emphatic 
Diaglott] no man shall see the Lord." Heb. 12 : 14. 



■^For brevity and convenience, we sometimes use the 
term " heaven " to designate the home of the saints ; 
but we use it only in a general sense, not doubting 
that the heavenly home of the glorified church will 
be the " new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.'^ 



62 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Thus we see that the possession of some degree 
of holiness, and a pressing after larger measures, 
are required of us here, which is precisely what 
should be expected from the attributes concerned 
in our salvation. That heaven is a place of holi- 
ness, is the common representation of the Bible, 
as it must be equally the affirmation of Reason, 
judging from the affinities of the Being whose 
presence and glory make heaven ; hence holi- 
ness must be the grand requisite for admission to 
its sacred enjoyments. 

But here the question arises : How much holi- 
ness is requisite for admission into heaven? We 
answer : 

(1) Only so much as is involved in the regen- 
eration of the penitent. 

(2) Or such additional degree as may be se- 
cured by a faithful Christian life. 

(3) Or such as it is supposed is freely given to 
dying infants and to every justified spirit in the 
hour of death. 

The last is the belief of many. Yet, when we 
ask upon what it is based, we find its only found- 
ation to be an inference from two other beliefs, 
namely : (a) That all the good, but only partially 
sanctified people in the world, cannot be lost. 
(Jb) Yet without holiness — in greater degree than 
they possess in life — no one shall see the Lord. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 63 

Thence comes the inference : " God must sanctify 
them in death !" 

Now, is it not strange that amid all the prom- 
ises of God's Word, not one distinctly and defi- 
nitely suggests such a hope, much less the assur- 
ance of it? We find therein 292 promises of 
temporal blessings, 280 relating to troubles, 183 
pledging salvation in eternity, 321 relating to the 
church, and 1219 of spiritual blessings in this 
life — a grand total of 2295 (counting one verse 
as a promise) — ^but not one even hinting at death- 
purification I If such a death-purgation be the 
grand reliance of the great mass of believers, 
why is the door of doubt left so widely ajar here, 
when so carefully closed elsewhere ? Any other 
matter of solicitude can scarcely be mentioned 
that has not some promise specially adapted to it ; 
why, then, should this crowning peak of all anx- 
iety be left unarched by a single bow ? The si- 
lence of the Scriptures upon this point is fatally 
suggestive. 

But granting, for a moment, the correctness of 
this popular view ; then it follows that a free gift 
of holiness is made in the hour of death to in- 
fants and all believers, not as being necessary to 
save them from hell — for no justified soul can go 
there — but to fit them for heaven. And this gift 
is made without their voluntary concur- 



64 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

RENCE^ because infants are incapable of it ; and 
if believers, by repentance upon tHe bed of death, 
liave it, it is wrought in them by supernatural 
agency, which equals still another free gift to 
them. But if God can purify a soul in death, 
without its concurrence, or if he can supernat- 
urally induce such concurrence, then he can do 
the same in life; since it is absurd to suppose 
that death can have any cleansing, or will-con- 
straining agency. Besides, the attributes already 
named require in their very nature that free gifts 
of such astounding imports shall be made, if at 
all, AT THE TIME whcn they can most effectively 
serve the design in making them, viz., the glory 
of God and the good of men. 

All God's acts of grace spring from his infinite 
love. Such love must do the best that it can for 
the recipient, else it is not infinite love. But ac- 
cording to the opinion under review, that love 
can and does sanctify men in death as a free gift. 
Then it can sanctify before death just as well, as 
a free gift. And by so much as sanctification in 
life is a better thing than justification, and by so 
much as it glorifies God and benefits men more, 
by all this he is bound to give it just as quickly 
as possible to the justified believer. For, surely, 
mere justice requires that those who are to be ex- 
posed to life's perils, and endure its trials, shall 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 65 

receive as good an outfit as those who escape 
both. And their security amidst this world's 
corruptions requires all the purity that God can 
give them, while his own glory demands that they 
shall be as good representatives of his purity as 
free grace can make them, and his infinite love 
necessitates that his own dear children, whom he 
regards " as the apple of his eye," shall be fur- 
nished with all the protection and aid that his 
supernatural working and free gifts can bestow ; 
therefore, if God can sanctify the dying Christian 
by free grace, and the living by the same free 
grace, and fails to do the latter, he is not only a 
respecter of persons, in favor of the dying, but 
is unjust to them in that he has not sanctified 
them before, and unjust to the living in that he 
does not sanctify them by free grace at all ; be- 
cause the principles of honor and right demand 
that a helpless being exposed to such tremendous 
liabilities shall be guarded in the best possible 
manner. 

For these reasons we are constrained to discard 
this hypothesis, and fall back upon the first as alone 
consonant with the principles of the Divine ad- 
ministration, namely: The holiness which is 
esteemed requisite for heaven is only so much as 
is involved in the regeneration of the penitent ; 
the additional degree that may be secured by a 



66 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

life of fidelity only enhancing the rewards, with- 
out being the condition of heavenly inheritance. 
It should, however, be distinctly understood that 
the experience of added degrees of moral purity, 
consequent upon fidelity, is the conditio7i of a life 
of justificaiion. That is, one who voluntarily 
neglects the attainment of such a measure of 
sanctification as legitimately pertains to and issues 
from a life of fidelity, must receive pardon for 
that sin of omission before he can be said to be 
in a truly justified state here, or be saved here- 
after. 

Some assume that "God sees in the justified the 
real conditions of purity," and therefore bestows 
it, in death, not arbitrarily, but according to the 
law of grace. Then, we ask, why does he not 
bestow it upon the living for the same reason? 
It surely cannot be because of his consideration 
of the "shortness of the season '^ to the dying, as 
an eminent divine has said, for multitudes of 
them have lived through many years of Christian 
experience and had a long season before death ; 
unless he thereby voluntarily condones their life- 
' time fault, and in effect rewards their spiritual 
indolence. 

It would be well for those who advocate this 
view to point out what " conditions of purity" are 
to be found in the dying beyond those which exist 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 67 

in the convert, and aside from particular sancti- 
fying faith, which is excluded from this discus- 
sion by the fact that the theory which we oppose 
is framed to account for death-bed sanctifications 
without the specific action of the subject. If the 
reader will turn back and read pages 18-21, he 
will feel the force of this difficulty as he cannot 
be supposed to do by a mere mental glance at 
convert-life. In the absence, therefore, of any 
known " conditions," real or possible, we submit 
that the hypothesis fails to furnish any satisfac- 
tory ground of assurance, and should be aban- 
doned as untenable. 

5. Another principle relating to the Divine 
Being is — The immediate accomplishment of his 
part of the work of salvation upon the occurrence 
of the right conditions in the subject. 

To assume otherwise, is to suppose that a work 
which God is infinitely desirous to do is held in 
abeyance, not only when all hindrances have been 
removed, but likewise without any reason ; be- 
cause, to infer the existence of a retarding reason 
in him, when there is none in the creature, is to 
assume an imperfection in him ; and if he delays 
the work without such a reason, he thereby be- 
comes capricious, which is likewise an imperfec- 
tion. We are thus constrained to admit the im- 
perfection and therefore the undeification of the 



68 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Deity, or accept the above as a principle relating 
to him in the work of human salvation. 

6. Still another principle relating to God is 
— The necessity of dealing with dissimilar facts 
in his human subjects as dissimilar, not as sirailar, 

A distinction was r^aade in the original produc- 
tion, of which this work is an enlargement, be- 
tween the me and, the my. 

The me is the totality of essence and attributes 
comprising this individual being, and concerning 
which character and actions may be affirmed. 

The my is anything belonging to the me which 
may be separated from it without its destruction. 

Reason asserts the existence in the me of a will- 
power, which is such an essential element of the 
7ne that, were it dissected out, the me would not 
remain. 

Consciousness affirms the reality of volitions, 
which are certain contingent results attributable 
to the will-power, any of which results may be 
separated from the me with no detriment to the 
complete conception of the me. The will-power 
is a part of the me. The volitions are included 
in the my. 

The me is the spirit — embracing intelligence, 
(including perception of facts and relations, and 
intuitions of truth ;) character-affinities, (includ- 
ing affectional communion with God ;) intuitions 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 69 

of futurity; desires and emotions ; the reversional 
faculty; the ideational faculty; habit-constitution ; 
moral free-will ; consciousness ; conscience, and 
instincts. 

The my is the soul and body — embracing infe- 
rior intelligence, (including sense-perceptions and 
adaptive reason ;) desires and emotions ; habit- 
susceptibility; imaginations ; affections ; instincts ; 
memory, and will, together with the material 
frame and all its functions. 

Now, if there is no distinction between the me 
and the my, every dictionary of every language 
must have falsely interpreted the discriminations 
of thought; our fundamental conceptions con- 
cerning self-hood as an entity, as distinct from 
those accidents that may be predicated of it, are 
all wrong; and the testimony of Reason and 
Consciousness are misleading. Hence we con- 
clude that the distinction is founded upon a dif- 
ference in fact. 

Every fact has its own peculiar relation to 
other facts, and no two dissimilar facts can pos- 
sibly sustain precisely the same relation to others. 

It is a fact that God is engaged in the work of 
human salvation. In relations with this, are the 
facts in question — the me and the my. But dif- 
ferent and dissimilar as they are, it is impossible 
that they should stand in the same relation to the 



TO CHRISTIAN HOLINESS, 

great fact of Divine interposition for man. 
Hence arises the necessity that God shall regard, 
and plan for them according to their dissimilar 
relations. 'Nor should it be deemed surprising if 
the difference in those relations should be found 
to determine the boundaries of some of his acts 
of grace toward man. 

2. Principles which relate to Man, 

Here, again, the nature is the ground from 
which the principles spring. As we investigate 
this branch of our subject, it will be well to bear, 
in mind the familiar distinctions between Intel- 
lect, Sensibilities, and Will, adding, to complete 
the statement, the Corporeal Structure. The fol- 
lowing propositions will doubtless be accepted, in 
reference to these several departments of man's 
being : 

First All mental processes involved in reli- 
gious experience are subject to the same laws of 
inter-dependence that obtain in those which relate 
to other matters not religious. That is, the proper 
excitant of will is motive ; of sensibility, is im- 
pression ; and of intellect, is fact or truth, in reli- 
gion, as in other things. 

Second, The mere fact that a religious exper- 
ience has been engrafted into a man's compound 
nature, will not prevent the physical states from 
effecting (as casual forces) certain modifications 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 71 

of mental action. E. g. If an overdose of opium 
will arrest mentality in the unregenerate, a sim- 
ilar dose will no less stupefy the regenerate mind. 
From the well known laws involved in mental 
and physical action as related to religious exper- 
ience, we deduce the following principles which 
will need but little amplification, namely : 

1. Man must be convicted of the reality and 
malignity of his moral disease. 

The proffer of a cure is ever unmeaning in the 
absence of knowledge of disease. Deliverance 
from no existing calamity, and salvation from no 
peril, are sounds without sense. Hence the con- 
viction of helplessness and peril is at the spring 
of all effort toward relief. 

2. He must be convinced that there is an ef- 
fectual remedy for him. 

The fact that so few of those who are convinced 
of the reality can be induced to avail themselves 
of its benefits, shows how necessary is this assur- 
ance. Besides, the laws of mind require, as a con- 
dition precedent to earnest and long continued spir- 
itual endeavors, an unshaken faith in their validity, 
which faith can only be grounded upon an assur- 
ance of their adaptation to our state of need • or, 
in other words, as the right things to do to secure 
a relief -somewhere provided. 



72 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

3. He must earnestly desire and determine to 
procure its application to himself. 

No sick man is ever healed simply by his 
knowledge of his disease, or assurance of the ex- 
istence of a remedy. He must superadd to these 
a desire to be cured strong enough to induce him 
to make effort, and a special determination that 
shall direct the effort in the proper channels. 

4. He must be conscious of the validity of his 
efforts to subject himself to the potency of the 
remedy sought. 

Mistakes in this direction might be fatal. As- 
surance must be assurance. Desire must he de- 
sire. Consecration must be consecration. Deter- 
mination must be determination. All his con- 
/Sciousnesses must be genuine. His knowledge 
must be sure, else every subsequent step will be 
vitiated by the uncertainty of the initial move- 
ments. And this necessity applies both to his 
knowledge of the conditions to be complied with 
in obtaining the remedy, and to his own fulfill- 
ment of those conditions. 

5. He can never be satisfied with anything 
short of a positive assurance of cure. 

Whether that assurance be derived as a logicM 
conclusion from premises consciously known, or 
as an inference from conscious fruits within, or 
accepted as the testimony of another, in either 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 73 

case, it must lack no element of positive affirma- 
tion. The soul instinctively desires and calls for 
a conviction of cure as clear, decided, and un- 
mistakable, as it has had of disease and want. 

6. Yet all the foregoing processes of convic- 
tion, convincement, desire, consciousness, and as- 
surance, must be subject to the modifications of 
thought and feelings naturally induced by changes 
of physical conditions. Anything more or less 
than this would inaugurate an essentially different 
era of probation, as well as remove man from the 
operation of those forces that play upon him 
through his physical organism ; in short, would 
make him something other than man. 

3, There is another class of principles which 
relate to the Tempter, 

No view of the work of salvation can be com- 
plete that does not embrace the energies of the 
Arch-adversary and the principles which control 
their activity. 

1. The first principle, both in the order of na- 
ture and of importance, is, unmitigated hostility 
to the work in all its phases ; a hostility, not merely 
of taste, or habit, or feeling, but of the deepest 
repulsions of the nature ; a hostility so elemental, 
comprehensive, and exclusive, that its instinctive 
feelings are antipathies — its spontaneous utter- 



74 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

ances are condemnatory — its ever-springing influ- 
ences are antagonistic. 

2. Hence follows, his pre-inclination to frus- 
trate the work, in each of its several stages of con- 
viction, convincement, desire, faith, consciousness, 
and assurance, by any means of deceit, falsehood, 
crimination, over-reaching, discouragement, un- 
balanced extremes of feeling, stupefaction, irri- 
tation, etc., that may be within his power. Con- 
stituted as men are, and situated as they are 
amid so many occasions for the play of his ener- 
gies in these directions, the opportunities for the 
gratification of his hostile inclinations are not in- 
frequent. Consequently, the importance of recog- 
nizing the principles which direct his movements 
cannot well be over-estimated. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LAWS IN ACTION. 

On page 4* laws w^ere defined as the uniform 
methods of action of physical, mental, and spirit 
forces in the production of the facts of Christian 
Holiness. The question now arises : 

What are the laws of Christian. Purity f Their 
classification is already indicated in the definition 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 75 

given. The psychical and spirit-forces often com- 
bine in thought-processes so intricately that it is 
difficult, and perhaps unimportant to distinguish 
them. Hence we adopt the common method, and 
consider such combinations, as well as the purely 
psychical, under the following heads : 

1, Mental, 

Under this head we consider — 

1. Laws of NORMAL development and action, 

(1) The first of these is, the recognized domi- 
nancy of the regulative faculties, viz., reason, 
conscience, and judgment. 

Linked as we are to the world by chains of 
direct material causation, it is not surprising that 
the sensuous part of our nature is emphatically 
impulsive, and, as such, blind and unreasoning. 
Its primary spontaneity is toward indulgence, 
and its strongest instinct pleads for gratification. 
Desire is law. Craving is license. But man is 
destined for a higher sphere than the merely sen- 
suous ; hence certain faculties are given to him, 
by which desire may be curbed and indulgence 
subjected to rule. Keason, conscience and judg- 
ment, standing over against temptation, impulse, 
and desire, are commissioned regulators of their 
capricious movements, and authorized expound- 
ers of the law of innocent gratification ; and only 



76 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

in their supremacy can there be harmonious de- 
velopment of being. 

(2) Habitual use of the mental faculties, each 
in its own appropriate sphere, is another law of 
normal mentality. 

The axiom of science, that possession of a fac- 
ulty is an indication of designed use, applies as 
w^ell to man as to beast, and as well to each sepa- 
rate faculty as to the totality of his nature. 
Man's mind is a complicated arrangement of 
parts, like a well constructed machine, each part 
having a distinct office to perform, and being 
nicely adjusted to the w^hole, so that from the in- 
dividual movements of the parts shall result a 
combination of effects which shall accomplish the 
object of the designer. 

And, in this co-ordinate movement it is impor- 
tant that each part shall do its own work, and 
that only. The minute-hand of the watch may 
by excess of energy not only travel its appointed 
rounds with unslackened speed, but may likewise 
drag the hour-hand with it around the dial. All 
such appropriation of the work of another by 
any part can have but an unfavorable result. 
So, each mental faculty has its sphere in wdiich it 
alone is the proper worker ; and so nicely are 
their adjustments fitted, that any disturbance of 
their normal relations must result disastrously. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 77 

Of course, it will be understood that these re- 
marks apply only to the use of faculty upon oc- 
casion. We are so circumstanced that an unin- 
terrupted use, during our working hours, of all 
our faculties, is impossible. But, when occasion re- 
quires its use, if one remains dormant it is in viola- 
tion of a constitutional law of our being, and like 
all other transgressions of fundamental laws, must 
find a disastrous result, greater or less, according 
to the relative importance of the faculty and the 
interests involved. 

(3) The testimony of each faculty, unimpeach- 
able within its appropriate sphere, is the third 
law of correct mental action. 

The truth of this proposition lies at the basis 
of all reliable investigation of the phenomena of 
life. If it be once conceded that the testimony of 
a faculty when in a state of health, and occupied 
within its appropriate sphere — both as to the 
character of its exercise and its subject-matter — 
can be invalidated by the doubts of any other 
faculty, there is endless confusion introduced at 
once, and uncertainty, broad as the possible ques- 
tionings of a universal skepticism, results. 

This law will be found to have a most impor- 
tant bearing upon certain phases of religious ex- 
perience, hence it should be carefully noted and 
well remembered. 



78 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

2. Laws of ABNORMAL development and aeiion. 

(1) The first that meets our attention is what 
may be called the law of perversity ; as when the 
control of the regulative faculties is overcome by 
those inborn tendencies, or by those acquired 
habits which assume the mastery over men in the 
ratio of their strength, and domineer the will 
with a savage recklessness that knows but the 
single law of blind, greedy, headstrong indul- 
gence. 

Nor are these tendencies and habits all. Our 
natural appetites — angel ministers turned into 
tempting devils — have sworn fealty to tenden- 
cy and habit both, and the alliance of the un- 
holy trio constitutes the wild, maddened host of 
our impulses toward wrong, which, in concert 
with the temptations of the external world, wage 
an unremitting warfare against the spirit. 

Opposed to these are the conscience — the fac- 
ulty which recognizes obligation, whose vocabu- 
lary is comprehended in the phrases " ought ^' and 
" ought not," and which tells us how, from our 
stand-point, to avoid guilt; the judgment — the 
discriminating faculty, rendering its decisions 
formed out of the elements furnished by the 
whole nature of the man, and his surroundings, 
according to the presentments of reason ; and the 
will — ^peremptorily deciding in view of the mo- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 79 

tives presented on the one hand by the tempta- 
tions and impulses, and on the other by the con- 
science and judgment. 

The conflict, then, has come to this : on cme 
side are ranged temptations and impulses ; on the 
other, conscience and judgment ; while above all, 
in magisterial supremacy, sits the will — a Moses 
giving victory to Israel with extended arms, but 
conquest to Amalek with hands not upheld. 
Now, it sometimes happens that these regulative 
faculties are so perverted that it is impossible for 
them to control the nature. 

The external world is as the key-board of the 
piano in juxtaposition with the internal world of 
connecting hammers ready to smite the strings. 
It is thus a grand solicitor and the mind is the 
solicited, and, as such, it yields mechanically in 
instantaneous response to the solicitations. In 
the first motions of response, it is as helpless and 
innocent as any other mechanism. Yet its true 
sovereignty consists in this, that it need not sur- 
render itself to the potency of the impulse. 

In the days when persecution was considered a 
mark of Christian zeal, there might have been 
seen in one of the torture halls of the Inquisition 
one Zeno upon the rack ; and as they turned the 
crank, and the muscles began to stretch and the 
joints to give, the terrible pain of that racking 



80 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

process cried out through every nerve : " Recant !" 
But his conscience protested, and his will coin- 
cided, so he nobly bit off his tongue and spit it 
out in the face of his executioners, lest in the 
hour of weakness it should betray him. From 
that heroic display of the sovereignty of will down 
to those weaker exhibitions when its greatest 
power is seen only in this, that it raises a feeble 
and insufficient protest against the impulses, but 
only enough to prolong the struggle which ends 
at length in defeat, there is a gradation from the 
high to the low, which shows that sovereignty 
fading out by degrees, down to absolute ineffi- 
ciency. 

It may seem that it is true only of idiots and 
lunatics that there are tendencies in some natures 
which are an overmatch for the regulative facul- 
ties ; yet, they may co-exist with large intellectual 
power, as in the case of the two Coleridges, 
father and son. The elder Coleridge was an 
opium-eater, and his will was so powerless that he 
was obliged to have a constant attendant to keep 
him out of mischief; yet he had an almost peer- 
less intellect. He begged his friends to send him 
to an asylum, where he might be kept out of evil. 
His son inherited his imbecility of will, and 
plunged into evil without apparently trying to 
resist it. He seemed to yield spontaneously to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 81 

the temptations that were presented, and thus re- 
cords his sad experience : 

"Oh ! woeful impotence of weak resolve, 
Recorded rashly to the writer's shame : 

Days pass away, and Time's large orbs revolve, 
And every day beholds me still the same. 

Till oft-neglected purpose loses aim, 
And hope becomes a flat, unheeded lie.'' 

Is it possible to conceive of a man in a more 
wretched condition than this — with an intellect 
that thoroughly understands its unfortunate posi- 
tion, and yet with a will so imbecile that when 
the temptation comes it is welcomed by the per- 
versities of the nature, and no power within to 
resist it ? 

Should the question be raised here : ''Whence 
came this bent of nature?" The answer is: 
These perversities are Isirgelj physical. They be- 
long to the brain, were inherited from parents, 
and have been modified by experience, until they 
powerfully afiect social and religious life. Sup- 
pose a boy, in handling a hatchet, strikes it deep 
into the fleshy part of his hand. The wound will 
heal, but let that boy live to be a hundred years 
old, and nature will not forget to repeat the scar 
every day of his life. That is to say, there is 
something impressed upon the vital force of that 
boy's body, which makes it, instead of building 



82 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

up the tissues of that particular portion of the 
hand as those of the same portion of the other 
hand are built, build it up in the form of a scar, 
and it never forgets to do so. So men come into 
this world with their brains scarred through and 
through by the blows that have been inflicted upon 
them by the vices, indulgences, and proclivities of 
their parents ; and it is little wonder that they be- 
come twisted into all sorts of abnormal deformities ; 
and as little that they tend to evil as naturally 
as sparks fly upward. Such physical perversities 
cause the mental forces, that must play through 
them, to give forth the discord that the piano 
woul'd give if its adjustments were incomplete or 
disarranged. 

(2) Irregularity is another law of abnormal 
mentality, and it consists in the habitual disuse, 
or excessive use of certain faculties. 

Much less injurious than the foregoing form of 
perversity, unless it be carried to such an extreme 
as to have become perversity, it is nevertheless to 
be deplored, because habitual disuse is almost al- 
ways attended with more or less loss of power, 
while excessive use always tends toward perver- 
sion. The ideal man is one whose faculties are 
all in use, upon occasion, and in such regulated 
exercise that only harmonious action results. 
Very far below this ideal we are constrained to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 83 

be ; nevertheless, the laws of our best life must 
be deduced from such an ideal, and it needs but 
a glance to show that the irregularities tinder 
consideration detract ruinously from the charac- 
ter of perfect mentality. 

This law often manifests itself also in the shape 
of confusion and encroachment ; as when one fac- 
ulty or set of faculties arrogates to itself the 
functions of another. When men speculate upon 
established truths, following the bent of an er- 
ratic Imagination where only the most disciplined 
Reason should tread, they introduce confusion 
and discord, not only within the realm of ac- 
cepted doctrines, but likewise amid the certitudes 
of their own intellectual processes. 

Imagination has its function, and a noble one 
it is ; but her fiery spirit and tireless wings but 
poorly qualify her for the slow, toilsome, plod- 
ding, matter-of-fact investigation by which truth 
is sometimes reached, or the relentless sifting and 
rigid questioning by which it is established. 
Here Reason, Judgment, and Experiment must 
speak ; while in the realm of creative genius, and 
sometimes in the domain of inspired Hope, Im- 
agination may soar to her loftiest flights, and 
flash the most gorgeous hues from her sun-bathed 
wings, and man shall be blessed as he gazes. 

So Emotion has its sphere, and Will its place ; 



84 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

but Emotion, either sobbing or shouting, must 
not usurp the throne of Will, nor yet the man- 
dates of the Will attempt the ebullitions of the 
Emotions. Each must do its own work, and that 
only, is the perfect law of life ; and any departure 
from this is the imperfect and damaging law of 
abnormalty. 

(3) A law^ kindred with the foregoing is that 
of distrust ; as when the validity of the affirma- 
tion of one faculty within its own sphere is called 
in question by another outside of its sphere. E. 
g. When the Fears dispel the comfort of well 
based Hope, or Hope presumes upon the posses- 
sion of good that Caution hesitates to endorse, or 
Caution occasions distrust where Reason gives 
good assurance of security, or transient Emotions 
assume the voice of Consciousness of general 
state, or Consciousness of present general condi- 
tion invalidates specific acts of Faith. 

Distrust of a positive affirmation of any fac- 
ulty by reason of the mere suggestion of any 
other faculty, is one step towards lunacy ; whether 
the particular field in which that distrust roots 
itself be mental or spiritual. 

2. Spiritual. 

The spiritual being only the mental in its infi- 
nite and eternal relations to the Supreme, difiers 
only in its adjustments from the mental in its 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 85 

finite relations. Therefore, the only elements to 
be added here are those which are derived from 
the contact of the mental with the Divine. 

1. Laws of i^iORMAJu spiritual development and 
action. 

(1) Acceptance of Christ as the only and all- 
sufficient Savior. 

The atonement is a fact apprehended by the 
mind, by means of the Holy Scriptures, as bear- 
ing upon its relations to the Supreme. The suffi- 
ciency and exclusiveness of that fact are cOgnat^j 
conceptions. These conceptions demand appro- 
priate treatment, which can be nothing less than 
the fulfillment of the obligations arising from 
their possession. Hence the acceptance of Christ 
is the first legitimate law of spiritual develop- 
ment. 

(2) Complete submission to the will of God, is 
another law of normal spiritual action too appar- 
ent to need argument or illustration. We there- 
fore pass it by to dwell upon another equally 
manifest, yet practically so frequently called in 
question, that some delay upon it may be a ben- 
efit to the reader. 

(3) Entire consecration to the work of God. 
"Ye are not your own, but are bought with a 

price ; therefore glorify God in your bodies and 
in your spirits which are his," is the claim which 



86 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

the supreme Jehovah makes in his Word upon 
all ; and it is a claim that Philosophy recognizes 
as valid and imperative upon those who would 
honor their relations to God. His worjc is not 
only the development of a righteous character in 
the individual, but the use of that character in 
the procurement of a like development in others. 
Hence, entire consecration to God's work implies 
not only a definite and unconditional surrender 
to his will, but the use of all legitimate means 
for self-growth, and the faithful application of 
the energy developed v/ithin to the culture of 
those around ; and this, too, not as an occasional 
outflow^ of extra-stimulated zeal, or as a tempo- 
rary gratuity of gratitude or sympathy, but as 
an abiding, normal law of Christian life. 

To suppose anything short of this as the law, 
is to throw the whole decision upon poor private 
judgment, warped by prejudice, cramped by in- 
dulgence, and distorted by proclivities to sin. It 
is easy to see that such a non-authoritative, ever- 
varying standard of appeal could yield but one 
result, viz., declining piety, and service of dimin- 
ishing worth. 

Such a law, honored, will of course result in a 
corresponding state. The state, it is true, will be- 
gin in a consecratory act; but it can never find 
its complete fulfillment in a single act, however 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 87 

comprehensive ; it must pass on into a consecu- 
tive, on-flowing disposition and attitude of the 
nature. 

(4) Eeliance upon the guidance and sustain- 
ment of the Holy Spirit. 

Too blind and helpless to travel unaided in 
the way of life, the Christian ever feels the need 
and rejoices in the privilege of being guided and 
upheld by the Divine Comforter. Few prom- 
ises of the sacred Word come with more sweet 
and welcome refreshment to the spirit than those 
which assure of direction and help. To take the 
hand extended to lead us, and lean upon the arm 
reached out for our support, is felt to be not only 
a favor of sonship but a condition of continued 
discipleship. Hence it may be regarded as an- 
other law of spiritual development. 

(5) Procurement of the special helps of grace. 

The law last named contemplates only the or- 
dinary assistance of the Holy Spirit in the com- 
mon experiences of the Christian. But times of 
extraordinary pressure come to all, when circum- 
stances seem in league with ^he powers of dark- 
ness to imperil the spirit — ^when simply to ^^hold 
on^^ requires a concentration of energy and a des- 
perateness of determination that mark the crisis 
hours of destiny ; and, when such hours come, 



OO CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

the heart casts about for reserve-forces, and calls 
imploringly for the residue of the Spirit. 

Then is realized the value of the special helps 
which come only in response to the cry of special 
need. Then, if such help be not received, wreck 
or loss inevitably ensues. So imperative, there- 
fore, is the necessity for unusual grace, that its 
acceptance and use at such times may legiti- 
mately be regarded as still another law of normal 
Christian activity. 

There is another class of laws in spiritual life, 
directly opposite to those named, which corres- 
pond with the laws of disease in the physical 
organism. These may be called — 

2. Laws of ABNORMAL Spiritual development 
and action, 

(1) Partial acceptance of Christ ; i. e,, an ac- 
ceptance which lacks completeness when consid- 
ered in relation to the largest needs of the sup- 
pliant — an acceptance which does not measure to 
the length and breadth of want. 

In so far as such deficiency exists, there must 
be a corresponding repression of the vital forces 
of Christian life, and a consequent appearance of 
abnormal symptoms of worldliness, selfishness, or 
passion, that clearly indicate unhealthfulness 
within. The only antidote to these natural con- 
ditions is reliance upon the indwelling Christ — 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 89 

a reliance which is in itself the condition and the 
measure of his helpful grace. 

(2) Rebellions against God's will. 

As submission to his will is the most thorough 
touchstone of Christian character^ it is not sur- 
prising that when that character is defective in 
any of its important elements, or lacking in their 
proportionate strength, it should reveal the fact 
by protests and murmuring in times of suffering 
or loss, and wilful resistance to extreme obliga- 
tions. This is one of those bad uniformities of 
depravity, occurring in connection with insuffi- 
ciency of grace, that we feel constrained to note 
as a law of abnormal spiritual development. 

(3) Defective consecration to God's work — 
which is a consequence of the partial acceptance 
of Christ, and Avhether a cause or consequence of 
rebellion against God's will — is an almost unva- 
rying uniformity of all inferior types of disciple- 
ship, so clear and decisive that it may be regarded 
almost as a therm ometrical scale of fidelity. 

Hence, in the most successful evangelism, the 
prime effort is to secure a renewed consecration of 
believers to the work of God. And even when 
this is not formally done, such consecration, as a 
matter of fact, almost always precedes any 
marked efficiency in Christian life. It is evident, 
therefore, that a defective consecration must ever 



90 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

be regarded as a source of weakness, so full of 
peril that its causative power demands recogni- 
tion amid the abnormal laws under discussion. 

(4) Partial self-guidance, and self-dependence. 

These are only varying phenomena of an un- 
healthy spiritual condition, yet . so constantly 
occurring in nearly all unsatisfactory religious 
states that they may be deemed indices of a cor- 
responding law of diseased immaturity. 

(5) Neglect of the proffered aid of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Since by that aid alone all progress is made, 
and since the rapidity of the progress is largely 
dependent upon the aid actually accepted, it fol- 
lows that if it be spurned or neglected there 
must be a corresponding diminution in the results 
achieved. But with active forces of evil within, 
and ever-pressing evils around, the forward move- 
ment cannot be retarded beyond a certain degree 
Avithout a result speedily fatal to its subject. 
Hence the neglect of the proffered aid of the. 
Holy Spirit may be regarded as one of the initial 
retrogressive conditions of a questionable expe- 
rience. 

(6) Mental instability. 

That some are so unfortunate as to be vacillating 
and unreliable throughout most of their lives, is a 
matter of fact that few will dispute. That such do 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 91 

become Christians with high ideals and noble 
purposes, must be admitted upon the common 
rules of evidence. That their subsequent, other- 
wise unaccountable aberrations, spring from con- 
stitutional infirmity, it is but charitable to con- 
clude. Such infirmity, wherever found, becomes 
a divergent force of unmeasured power, revealing 
itself in a law of instability, referred to in the 
parable of the hearers who had " no root within 
themselves." 

(7) Excessive mental bias. 

Strong prejudices of judgment and proclivities 
of desire, with great obstinacy of will and exces- 
sive fervor of zeal, often constitute, either singly 
or compounded, a state, the perpetuated charac- 
teristics of which indicate a uniformity of evil 
that may be appropriately termed a law of ab- 
normal development. Doubtless this and the 
foregoing class are only species of the mentally 
abnormal groups referred to on pages 78, 79, but 
it should be noted that on page 84 it was affirmed 
that the spiritual is only the mental in certain 
relations ; hence we should expect to find the ab- 
normalities of mind projecting themselves within 
the spiritual realm and manifesting themselves 
by like characteristics there. 

(8) Bodily infirmities. 

Here we enter upon a broad field of investiga- 



92 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

tion, the importance of which has been strangely 
overlooked by most writers upon this subject. 
Not that all physical ailments are to mark their 
subjects as under the laws of abnormal spiritual 
development; but that there is a sufficient num- 
ber of such which proclaim their anti-spiritual 
power with sufficient persistence and uniformity 
to entitle them to appear in the category here re- 
ferred to, will be made evident as we proceed to 
discuss — 

3. The physical laws of the subject. 

These may be classified thus : 

1. Laws of NOKMAL development and action, 
as when each organ healthfully performs its func- 
tion. 

(1) Healthful respiration ; including air enough 
to thoroughly fill the lungs, and of sufficient 
purity to completely oxygenate the blood. This, 
of course, supposes the absence of mechanical re- 
straints upon the natural movements of the ribs 
and diaphragm, and the freedom of the atmos- 
phere from noxious effluvias and baneful mala- 
rias. The reader will note that we are consider- 
ing laws — not easily attainable conditions; hence 
no regard can be had in the statement to the con- 
straining force of circumstances. 

(2) IS oxmdl circulation ; unimpeded by injuri- 
ous local compressions or the constrictions of 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEBIENCE. 93 

chilling exposures, and undisturbed by the con- 
gestions of over-wrought activity ; a circulation 
that bears upon its strong and even tide all the 
effete matter of the system for elimination, and a 
rich burden of nutritive aliment for assimilation, 
amid the wasting structures and tissues of the 
frame. 

(3) Adequate and balanced nutrition ; so that 
the wastes of life shall be continuously repaired 
just when they occur, and thus no parts be en- 
riched by the poverty of others, but all alike 
built up in strong and equal equipoise. 

(4) Well regulated activity. It is the law of 
our being that organic integrity shall be pre- 
served by functional activity. Hence partial 
activity, or general activity with long intervals of 
inaction, are both, by their organic re-actions, 
seriously detrimental to sound health either of 
body or mind. 

(5) Timely and sufficient ^ro^edion. Exposure 
is a common incident of life, and always opens a 
possibility of evil. Hence the necessity for pro- 
tection both timely and sufficient ; for sufficient 
protection lagging behind the exposure, or a 
timely protection insufficient to shield from the 
exposure, are alike in vain. 

2. Laws of ABNORMAL physical development 
and action. 



94 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

(1) Of disturbance of function. 

A. Either diminished or excessive functional 
activity. Either of these states may exist in any 
organ of the body ; and as the organs are so 
numerous, the functional disturbances to which 
we are liable are so various and multiplied that 
an extended work upon pathology would be re- 
quisite to describe them. For our present pur- 
pose it is enough to call attention to the fact that, 
in all physical deviations from the normal con- 
dition, every step of the departure is as much 
under the control of the not-living forces of mat- 
ter as the processes of health are of vital organ- 
ization ; hence there is strict propriety in affirm- 
ing the existence of laws of abnormal physical 
action, and in the appropriate place it will be 
seen how intimately this fact is related to the 
subject of this volume. 

JB, Sympathetic disturbance of other func- 
tions. Such are the relations of the several parts 
of the body through the great sympathetic ner- 
vous organization, that serious functional derange- 
ment in one organ can scarcely exist without 
greater or less sympathetic disturbance of other 
functions. Hence, it often happens that a local 
change or cessation of function — as, for example, 
torpidity of the liver — will produce general phys- 
ical prostration, and mental lassitude, finally 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 95 

resulting in spiritual depressions and almost 
hopeless despondency. 

(2) Of organic change of functional product. 

The mischief begun in functional derange- 
ment, and extending itself sympathetically to 
other organs, does not stop there. A function 
supposes some product of functional activity. If 
the function be abnormal, the product will be 
likely to be abnormal also, and the divergence 
may be more than in degree; the product may 
be organically different, and hence utterly un- 
adapted to fulfill its original purpose. E. g. Se- 
cretions that in a state of health are lubricating, 
in a state of disease may become painfully and 
even dangerously irritating. So, the thought- 
product of the brain, under the influence of nar- 
cotics and stimulants, may vary, from the rose- 
tinted visions of the hasheesh eater, bordering in 
vividness ^nd beauty upon the celestial sphere, 
to the demon-haunted madness of the victim of 
delirium tremens, presenting — if the term may 
be thus applied— an organic change of functional 
product exhibiting the tremendous power of dis- 
eased action. 

(3) Consequent organic changes elsewhere. 
The changed product of functional activity is 

not necessarily neutral or harmless. On the other 
hand, it is often virulent to such a degree that it 



96 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

corrodes or decomposes tissues with which it 
comes in contact, thus producing organic degen- 
eration at a distance from its own place of origin. 
E. g. The acrid secretions of the mucous mem- 
branes of the nose and head, excoriating the nos- 
trils in some cases of catarrh. 

(4) Of inheritance, producing abnormal na- 
tures. 

The reader should constantly bear in mind the 
fact that the word abnormal is used in this con- 
nection only in the technical sense of opposition 
to the highest and best natural. E. g. Disease is 
abnormal not in the sense that it is not in and of 
nature, but that it is not the best of nature, since 
the best is health. So these abnormal constitu- 
tions are not out of or beyond nature, but are 
specimens of its imperfect, or at least not best 
work. 

Heredity is the tendency inhering in all living 
beings to repeat themselves in their descendants, 
in structure, special characteristics, abnormal 
conditions, and acquired modifications. In the 
whole range of science there is scarcely a more 
important subject of inquiry than this. That 
there are fixed and definite laws of inheritance, 
cannot be doubted. That these laws profoundly 
afiect the physical and mental status of all men 
at the beginniug of their lives, and of multitudes 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 97 

throughout the whole of their lives, is equally 
certain. That some of them have been ascer- 
tained, and are practically applicable to the pur- 
poses of life, seems settled from the use made of 
them in the breeding of domestic animals. That 
they affect, to a greater or less extent, not only 
the feasibility, but the possibility of Christian at- 
tainments, may be a startling statement, and is 
one that well merits careful investigation. 

" Heritage has in reality more power over our 
constitution and character, than all the influences 
from without, whether moral or physical." (Bur- 
d'lch) 

"Heredity is but one form of that ultimate 
law which by physicists is called the conservation 
of energy, and by*metaphysicians, universal caus- 
ality." {Ribot, " Heredity;' p. 391.) 

That physical and moral degeneracy is a fre- 
quent result of vitiated parentage, is the testi- 
mony of all intelligent writers upon this subject. 
Concerning the inheritance of a tendency to 
drunkenness, "M. Morel, v/ho has investigated 
this subject more profoundly than any living 
writer, says : ' I have never seen the patient cured 
of his propensity whose tendencies to drinh were 
derived from the hereditary predisposition given to 
him by his parents, ... I constantly find the sad 
victims of the alcoholic intoxication of their 



98 CHEISTIAN HOLINESS. 

parents in their favorite resorts — the asylums for 
the insane, prisons, and houses of correction. I 
as constantly observe amongst them deviatio:ns 

FROM THE NORMAL TYPE OF HUMANITY, mani- 
festing themselves, not only by arrests of develop- 
ment, and anomalies of constitution, but also by 
those vicious dispositions of- the intellectual order 
which seem to be deeply rooted in the organiza- 
tion of these unfortunates, and which are the un- 
mistakable indices of their double fecundation m 
respect to both physical and moral eviU " (Naphys 
" Transmission,'^ etc., p. 213.) 

" The habit of the parent becomes the almost 
irresistible instinct of the child ; the voluntarily 
adopted and cherished vice of the father or 
mother becomes the overpowering impulse of the 
son or daughter ; the organic tendency is excited 
to the uttermost, and the poy/er of will and of 

CONSCIENCE is PROPORTIONATELY WEAKENED." 

{Elam, " Physician^ s Problems,^^ p. 5.) 

" Acquired habits in several successive genera- 
tions become permanent, and assume the charac- 
ter of instincts.'' (Sir Benj. Brodie, Mind and 
Matter, p. 212.) 

" Acquired and habitual vice will rarely fail 
to leave its trace upon one or more of the off- 
spring, either in its original form or one closely 
allied to it. {Elam, P. P. p. 5.) 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 99 

" A recent writer in the Psychological Journal 
says : ' The most startling problem connected 
with intemperance is, that, not only does it affect 
the health, morals, and intelligence of the off- 
spring of its votaries, but they also inherit the 
fatal tendency y and feel a craving for the very bev- 
erages which have acted as poisons on their systems 
from the commencement of their being J " {Ibid, p. 
40.) 

Insanity is universally recognized as an hered- 
itary disease, but writers differ as to the propor- 
tion of the insane whose malady originated in 
heredity. Mr. Esquirol says one-half, while Dr. 
Burrows estimates eighty-four per cent, as cor- 
rect ; Moreau of Tours, ninety per cent. ; Eibot, 
from thirty-three to fifty per cent., and Dr. 
Maudsley says " less than fifty per cent. ;" and 
accounts for this diversity by the statement : 
" Not insanity only in the parents, but any form 
of nervous disease in them, epilepsy, hysteria, 
and even neuralgia, may predispose to insanity 
in the offspring, or, conversely, insanity in the 
parent may predispose to other kinds of nervous 
diseases in the offspring." (P. and P, of Mind,'' 
p. 243.) 

Feuchtersleben, as quoted by Elam, represents 
the insane tendency as manifesting itself " on the 
psychical side by passiveness in thinking, in feel- 



100 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

ing, and in ivilling ; and on the physical side by 
predominant erethistic [morbidly excitable] vital 
debility." And M. Morel adds to the physical 
signs of its presence, " the strangest a7id most in- 
comprehensible aberration^ in the exercise of the 
intellectual facilities, and of the moral sentiments.^' 
The practical out-come of all this is thus given 
in the forcible language of Dr. Elam, p. 58 : " If 
moral liberty means anything beyond a formula 
without interpretation, it means the power of 
choosing and acting, according to the dictates of 
judgment, conscience, and will, in opposition to 
impulse and temptation. The impulse and the 
temptation being increased, and the faculties of 
judgment and will, and the dictates of the con- 
science, being both relatively and absolutely di- 
minished, it follows necessarily that, in propor- 
tion to these changes, moral liberty is invaded, 
its powers curtailed, and responsibility to some 
extent modified. These are precisely the varia- 
tions which we observe, ... In one we have an 
impulsive nature, in which, between the idea and 
the act, there is scarcely an interval ; in another, 
the proneness to yield to temptation of any kind 
— a feeble power of resistance, inherited either 
from the original or acquired nature of the pa- 
rent ; in a third we have imbecile judgment ; in 
a fourth, an enfeebled, vacillating will ; in a 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 101 

fifth, or in all, a conscience by nature or habit 
torpid, and all but dormant. All these are the 
normal representatives of an unsound parentage ; 
and all are potentially the parents of an unsound 
progeny ; in all is moral liberty weakened ; in all 
is responsibility not an absolute, but a relative 
idea." ^-All moral qualities are transmissible 
from parent to child, with this important addition, 
that, in the case of vicious tendencies or habits, 
the simple practice of the parent becomes the 
passion, the mania, the all but irresistible im- 
pulse of the child.'' {Physician's Problems, pp. 
58, 59, 84.) 

THE LAWS OF TRANSMISSION AND HERITAGE. 

These have been stated variously by different 
writers, while there is substantial agreement as to 
the facts. Our own classification is — 

A, Uniformity, By this law, the individuals 
of a race through successive generations pre- 
serve their race-peculiarities of structure, type, 
and function. " Every living thing produces its 
own kind and no other." ( Cook.) To this law, 
Mr. Cook's " co-equal" law of heredity may un- 
doubtedly be referred, since the reproduction of 
about equal numbers of the two sexes is a part of 
their function. This law of uniformity is based 
upon the fact that between the parent and the 



102 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

germ of the child exists a physical and psychical 
likeness induced by the primary operation of the 
life-force in generation. 

B, Duplication, (the "direct heredity" of Cook 
^ho here follows Eibot,) by which individual 
peculiarities are transmitted in any of the follow- 
ing named classes, namely : 

a. Physical peculiarities of structure or func- 
tion. Of these, Th. Ribot in " Heredity,'^ pp. 
36-45, has given numerous examples in respect 
to touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell. Mau- 
pertius, CEuores, vol. 2 : letter 17, citing a case of 
sexdigitism which persisted through four genera- 
tions, shows that by the law of probabilities the 
chance that a man with six fingers will have a 
child with six, is as 20,000 to 1. That his grand- 
child will have, is as 4 millions to 1, and that 
three successive generations will be thus is as 
8,000 millions to 1. 

Many authors, particularly Burdach, have in- 
sisted with considerable weight of argument that 
there is an invariable connection between physi- 
cal and moral heredity; that the parent who 
transmits the one does also the other. Limiting 
the physical just here to cranial developments, 
we are disposed in the main to accept the doc- 
trine. 

Dr. J. M. Fothergill, in " The Maintenance of 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 103 

Health;' pp, 175-180, says : " The chief classes 
into which inherited constitutions are divided are 
five : the gouty, the strumous, the nervous, the 
bilious, and the lymphatic." In the gouty, the 
frame is well developed, nutrition good, muscles 
firm, l-espiration and circulation good, mental 
powers vigorous, courage high. Their danger is 
a tendency to live too well and so develop in- 
herited tendencies to disease. In the strumous, 
the skeleton is not well developed, muscles not 
firm, vital force defective, mind quick, apt to be 
precocious, not enduring. These are in great 
danger of tubercle, and are unsuited to a life of 
self-denial and privation. In the nervous, the 
person is small, of restless activity, well propor- 
tioned, and powerful beyond the promise of their 
muscles. They have great brain power and en- 
durance, are quick, excitable, and feel keenly. 
Their danger is in overtaxing their strength, and 
nervous aflfections induced by excessive activity. 
In the bilious, the physique is good, dark haired, 
dark hued skin, often active and powerful, but 
gloomy. Their danger is, derangements of the 
digestive organs, and great susceptibility to mala- 
rial influences and the depression of hot climates. 
In the lyraphoMc, the frame is large, muscles soft 
and flabby, and greatly wanting in energy — the 
opposite of the nervous in physique and mental- 



104 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

ity — unsuited for a life of exertion, and decidedly 
inclined to passive hemorrhage, and to diseases 
of a low chronic type ; even more than the bil- 
ious susceptible to external influences. 

b. Organic, or nervous diseases. Ribot, " He- 
redity,^' pp. 123-131, has given abundant illus- 
tration that hallucination, monomania, suicide, 
mania, dementia and idiocy are transmissible. 
• See also Elam, '' Physician^ s Prohlems,^^ pp. 25, 
41, for cases of hemorrhage, and consumption, 
and pp. 53-54 for various nervous affections. 

c. Special tendencies or aptitudes to certain 
modes of action, derived from the acquired hab- 
its of parents. Speaking of oinomania, or dip- 
somania. Dr. Elam says, p. 72 : " The habit of 
the parent, when inherited, does not appear in 
the child merely as a habit, but in most cases as 
an irresistible impulse, a disease." In cimfirma- 
tion of this position he quotes M. Morel as re- 
ferring to cases in which was " a complete aboli- 
tion of all the moral sentiments,'^ and then he 
adds : " The offspring of the confirmed drunkard, 
rich or poor, will inherit either the original vice 
or some of its countless protean transformations. 
. . . With regard to other vices . . . whatever 
has a tendency to lower the physical, intellectual, 
or moral tone of the parent, has a tendency, sel- 
dom lost, to exert a disastrous influence over the fu- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEKIENCE. 105 

ture well-being of the child. Let the source of de- 
generation be what it may, the offspring will in- 
herit a body or mind bearing traces of imperfect 
fitness or balance, which sooner or later will 
assert its presence and power." Eibot, " Hered- 
ity, ^^ p. 116, cites the case of the gypsies for 
whom Borrow translated the Gospel of St. Luke 
into Komany. They accepted the book and car- 
ried it about their persons as a talisman when 
they went to steal. 

d. Mental traits. For many illustrations of 
hereditary memory, imagination, poetry, paint- 
ing, music, science, etc., see " Heredity'' by Kibot, 
pp. 62-80. Fothergiirs " if. of Health;' pp. 173 
-4. Dr. A. K. Gardner, " Our Children," pp. 
40-42. For heredity of will, see Eibot, pp. 94- 
107. 

6. Sentiments and passions. Illustrated at 
length by Kibot, " Heredity," pp. 83-94. See also 
" Heredity," (" Science Tracts, No %") pp. 6-8, 
S. H. Piatt, for some remarkable instances in the 
State of New York. Eev. Dr. T. D. Wither- 
spoon relates the following incident : 

"During a season of religious awakening a 
young lady called at my study in deep distress. 
She had come to me because she loved her own 
pastor so much that she could not bring herself 
to make a confession which she knew would 



106 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

grieve and horrify him. It was some terrible sin, 
at the very thought of which she shuddered, but 
the nature of which her lips refused to tell. 
Some time passed in fruitless efforts to secure 
from her the confession which she had conie to 
make, and her agony seemed every moment to 
increase. At length I took my Bible, and open- 
ing to the twentieth chapter of Exodus, asked 
her to place her finger upon the commandment 
she had broken. Slow^ly, and with a great strug- 
gle, she lifted her finger and placed it upon the 
words, " Thou shalt not take the name of the 
Lord thy God in vain.'' Knowing her gentle 
birth, her pious parentage, her religious training, 
and the refined society in which she moved, I w^as 
amazed, and inquired how it could possibly be. 
Then she told me all. Her mind was filled with 
horrid oaths ; oaths which, as she protested, she 
had never heard from human lips, and which, 
therefore, could only originate with herself; 
oaths too horrible to be repeated, and yet obtrud- 
ing themselves upon her even in the midst of her 
devotions, until her soul seemed to be but a depos- 
itory of the most blasphemous and revolting for- 
mulas of profane swearing. She had heard oaths 
at times, but never such as those Vv-hich were con- 
stantly coming into her mind. Long did this 
distressing state of mind continue, and even after 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 107 

it was gone, and peace and relief were found at 
the cross, there remained the unsolved mystery, 
until, on a certain occasion, some gentlemen were 
speaking in my presence of the father of this 
young lady and of his recent decease, when one 
of them remarked that he had heard many men 
swear, but had never known any man who could 
invent such strange and awful oaths, and utter 
them with such terrific emphasis, as did this man 
in his earlier and irreligious days. To my read- 
ers must be left the connection between this ex- 
traordinary profanity of the father and the terri- 
ble visitation in after years upon his lovely and 
accomplished daughter/' 

C. Diversity, If both parents transmit some- 
what to their offspring, a necessary consequence 
of the admixture of these two in the production 
of one, must be diversity. And that both must 
impart something must be supposed from the fact 
that there are established laws of transmission. 
According to P. Lucas, approved by Eibot, the 
child should be the exact mean of his two parents 
by the ideal law. This diversity may manifest 
itself in one or more of the following ways, 
namely : 

a. In species and varieties. Variations from 
the common type are well known facts in nature, 
and are constantly produced by the interbreeding 



108 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

and special cultivation of domestic animals by 
man. Hence this form of diversity needs no ex- 
tended illustration. 

b. In nervous diseases; e. g., insanity, epi- 
lepsy, Saint Vitus' dance, hysteria, neuralgia and 
catalepsy sometimes change their character in 
the descendants and become lunacy, idiocy, or 
some form of nervous disease different from that 
which afflicted the parents. 

" A simple neuropathic [diseased nerve] state 
of the parents may produce in the children an 
organic disposition which will result in mania or 
melancholy — nervous affections which in time 
may give rise to more serious degeneracy, and 
terminate in the idiocy or imbecility of those 
who form the last links in the chain of hereditary 
transmission." (Dr. Morel.) 

Speaking of the children in houses of correc- 
tion, Dr. Legrand du SauUe says they are "whim- 
sical, irritable, violent, with little intelligence, 
refractory, ungovernable and incorrigible — chil- 
dren of old men, blood relations, drunkards, 
epileptics or lunatics, or, as is more frequently 
the case, the father is unknown, and the mother 
is scrofulous, rickety, hysterical, a prostitute or 
a lunatic." Dr. Elam adds : " Hysteria or cho- 
rea, in one generation, may become imbecility, 
mania, or epilepsy in the next or third. Insanity 



ITS PHILOBOPHY AND EXPEKIENCE. 109 

in any form in the parent may be represented in 
the offspring either by a similar affection, by sen- 
sory disorders, (as deaf-dumbness, etc.,) by epilep- 
sy, by hysteria, or by vague and undefined weak- 
nesses or perversions of judgment, capacity or will, 
which we call unsoundness of mind.'' (" P. Prob- 
lems,'' p. 57.) 

c. In transmission of temporary states of 
parents when they become such, called by Cook 
the " initial law of heritage." The transmission 
of the actual and momentary state of the parents 
at the instant of conception has been treated at 
length by Lucas, Morel, Quatrefages, and others, 
and is an unquestioned fact in heritage. " There 
is no doubt whatever, that under such circum- 
stances, [when a child was conceived at the time 
the father was partially intoxicated] the child is 
pretty sure either to be idiotic, or to have epilep- 
tic fits, or to be of a feeble mind and irritable 
nervous system." (Napheys, " Transmission of 
Life," p. 186.) 

Dr. Combe, as quoted in Fernald's ^' First 
Causes of Character," pp. 33, 34, gives an ac- 
count of a soldier who at an entertainment 
danced and sang with a young woman the whole 
evening. They then left the cottage and after 
an hour were found together in a glen in a state 
of utter insensibility. The consequence was the 



110 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

birth of an idiot, who at six years of age was 
utterly incapable of making even signs, and did 
not know any human being. Both parents were 
intelligent, but their intellects were almost to- 
tally eclipsed by intoxication, and the darkness 
was transmitted as a heritage of doom to their 
child. 

The popular tradition that illegitimate chil- 
dren are handsomer and more healthy than 
others, undoubtedly originated in the notion that 
they are more likely to be "love children," hence 
inherit the temporary state of their parents. 
However much of truth there may be in this, 
there is even greater probability that such chil- 
dren will inherit the unrestrained impulse to 
indulgence exhibited by both their parents in the 
act which gave them being. 

D, Impressional Heredity ; as when the emo^ 
tions of the mother during the period of gesta- 
tion produce corresponding modifications, mental 
or structural, in the child. This is called by 
Cook " pre-natal heredity." 

To the writer it seems probable that the "re- 
versional heredity" of Cook and Lucas and the 
**• atavism" of Eibot and other authors — words 
used to express the inheritance of qualities from 
grand-parents instead of parents — should be re- 
ferred to impressional heredity, as it is far more 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEEIENCE. Ill 

probable that some impressions on the mind of 
the mother cause the modification, than that a 
distinct law should exist comparatively so seldom 
operative. For the same reason, the " pre-mari- 
tal heredity" of Cook, the same as the " heredity 
of influence" of Kibot, by which is designated 
likeness to a first husband in the child of the 
second husband, should also be referred to the 
law of impressional heredity, and especially as 
no case has come to our knowledge even among 
animals, much less the human race, where such 
inheritance has come through the father, ^. e., 
where the child of the second wife has resembled 
the first wife. Burdach Traite de Physiologie, 
p. 243, gives examples of the law, but they are all 
of progeny of females resembling earlier consorts. 
Still further, and for the same reason, Mr. Cook's 
"collateral heredity," the same as Ribot's "indi- 
rect heredity," by which he distinguishes resem- 
blances to uncles, aunts, cousins, etc., should be 
likewise classed under impressional heredity. 

Impressional heredity difiers from the law of 
duplication chiefly in this, namely : The former 
registers transient states of the mother, while the 
latter transmits abiding conditions ; and duplica- 
tion maybe from both parents, while impressional 
heredity is from the mother only. " One of the 
most distinguished authors on idiocy," says Foth- 



112 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

ergill, " lays it down as a rule that of idiots the 
largest proportion are first-born children, the im- 
perfection here representing the disturbance of 
the mother's nervous system in her first concep- 
tion/' He also cites the discovery by Sir James 
Simpson of a dark brunette, the eldest child of 
blonde parents, whose other children were all 
blondes. The explanation was this : The mother 
had in early life been too intimate with a black 
butler, and the secret had been kept buried for 
years, until the resemblance of her child to the 
lover of the dead past rather than the real pa- 
rents excited inquiry. "Children have been 
known to be thrown into fatal convulsions, by 
nursing a mother while she was in a phrenzy of 
anger. Is it then unreasonable to believe that 
the physical condition and mental emotion of the 
mother, during the nine months of gestation, 
must have a material influence upon the consti- 
tution and mental attributes of a creature, which 
lies close under her heart ? For a time this child 
is part and parcel of herself, every nutriment 
comes from her veins, she gives it being, and can 
it be doubted that she gives it physical character, 
mental stamina, and nervous energy ?" (Gardner, 
*' Our Children,'' pp. 54, 5.) 

Dr. Carpenter cites a case in point in Physiol- 
ogy, Sec. 723. M. Foster, Physiology, p. 698, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 113 

says : " Speaking broadly, the foetus lives on the 
blood of its mother, very much in the same way 
as all the tissues of any animal live on the blood 
of the body of which they are the parts." Prof. 
Dalton, Human Physiology, relates the case of a 
child born with a defective ear from a dream of 
the mother that she saw a man with such an ear> 
and Prof Lewis of Bellevue Hospital, as cited by 
Mr. Cook, refers to the case of a child born with 
the figures of a watch dial on the white of its 
eye, from the longing of the mother to see a 
watch. " The faculties actively used by the mother 
during pregnancy, rather than those lying latent 
and part of her original character, will be found 
prominent in her ofispring." (Georgiana B. 
Kirby, " Transmission,^^ p. 10.) 

A striking illustration of this law of trans- 
mission came under the observation of the 
writer. The parents w^ere wealthy and of un- 
usual culture and intelligence, and resided in a 
large city. During one of the mother's periods 
of gestation, friends visited them from a distance, 
and while there one of them was suddenly seized 
with a contagious disease that, if known, would 
have compelled immediate removal to the hospi- 
tal. The heart of friendship revolted at the 
thought, and instantly closing their house — as if 
away in the country— that mother nursed her 



114 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

friend through the long hot weeks of an excep- 
tionally warm summer, tormented with the double 
fear of the death of her patient and the discovery 
of her unlawful deed in harboring her, until at 
last she had the satisfaction of seeing complete 
recovery reward her self-sacrifice. Her own con- 
finement soon followed with an apparently bright 
and healthy boy, but as the months rolled away 
the painful conviction was forced upon the pa- 
rents that their child w^as nearly daft. Years 
have gone by, and the poor boy still lives, amia- 
ble, afiectionate, and bright in some respects, but 
utterly incapable of self-care or even of master- 
ing the common principles of reading and writ- 
ing. No other adequate cause can be assigned 
than those terrible weeks of voluntary imprison- 
ment and desperate battling with disease while 
feeding the life-springs of the coming child. 

Georgiana B. Kirby, " Trayismission,^^ pp. 25- 
48, gives several examples of impressional hered- 
ity of great significance to every mother. 

E, Reeurreneij ; or the tendency to return 
from variation to the original type. 

"In all natural departures from the original 
type, due to special causes, there is a constant 
tendency to return to the type.'' (" Physiciaris 
Problems,'^ p. 10.) Probably from the overmas- 
tering persistence of the law of uniformity. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 115 

Napheys refers to a special modification of 
this kind, thus : " There is a force resident in our 
nature by which the diseased organization tends 
to return to health. This benign healing force, 
this vis medicatrix, ... is ever influencing the 
effects of inheritance. . . . The law of inherit- 
ance is a certain but not an invariable one. Its 
force must not be overestimated. . . . Diseases 
are but perverted life-processes, and have for 
their natural history, not only a beginning, but a 
period of culmination and decline. . . . By time 
and rest, that innate vis medicatrix, 

' Which hath an operation more divine 
Than breath or pen can give expression to,' 

reduces the perversions back again to the physi- 
ological limits, and health is restored. To this 
beneficent law we owe the maintenance of the 
form and beauty of our race, in the presence of 
so much that tends to spoil and degrade it. . . . 
The effects of disease may be for a third or 
fourth generation, but the laws of health are for 
a thousand." (" Medicine in Modern Times/' Dr. 
Gull, p. 187.) 

MODIFYING FORCES. 

We must not overlook the fact that these laws 
of inheritance may in any case be largely af- 



116 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

fected by one or more of the following modifying 
forces, namely : 

(a) The influence of one parent in counteract- 
ing the influence of the other in transmission. 
" The influence of one parent upon the other in 
counteracting or intensifying the degree and the 
certainty with which the physical qualities of 
one or both are transmitted must be borne in 
mind. If the same defects be possessed by each 
parent they will be quite certain to appear in the 
children. If only one parent be afiected, some 
or all the children may escape the inheritance. 
... It is most fortunate that the tendency of a 
disease to propagate itself by inheritance is often 
overpowered by the stronger tendency of a vig- 
orous constitution to impress itself upon the ofi*- 
spring." (Napheys, " Transmission of Life^^ p. 
206.) Says M. Girou : " Acquired capacities are 
transmitted by generation, and this transmission 
is more certain and perfect in proportion as the 
cultivation has extended over more generations, 
and as that of one parent is less opposed by that of 
the other, ^^ 

(&) The union of the influence of both parents 
in the transmission of the same peculiarity. The 
quotation above scarcely needs the sanction of 
Fothergill's statement : " The children of both 
parents of a certain diathesis (predisposition to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEDIENCE. 117 

disease) will have that diathesis very marked ; 
. . . will be doubly, nay quadruply apt to suffer 
from it." (" Maintenance of Health" p. 184.) 
The fact is too evident to need further confirma- 
tion. 

(c) Any influence that gives temporary domi- 
nancy to the forces of diversity as against dupli- 
cation, or vice versa. Under this head may be 
classed all those cases where an exalted diversity 
of duplication or impression blesses the ofispring 
of bad parentage, and thus improves the family, 
as well as those cases where diseased or passionate 
conditions of diverse or impressional heritage 
curse the family with degenerate children. 

{d) Any habitual subjection to causes that an- 
tagonize recurrency, such as education of the chil- 
dren of drunkards in habits of tippling, bad con- 
ditions of life surrounding the children of con- 
sumptives, and habitual examples of crime before 
the eyes of the families of the vicious classes. 
Such habitual subjection to conditions which tend 
only to fix the inborn perversity, will be almost 
certain to overcome the law of recurrency, and 
perpetuate the degeneracy to that point where it 
cures itself in sterility and extinction. 

(e) Spontaneous variations, if such there be, 
as distinct from impressional heredity. It seems 
difficult to account for some facts of variation. 



118 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

especially in domestic animals, upon any other 
hypothesis than that of spontaneous divergence. 
Yet, it is hardly satisfactory to the philosophical 
mind to admit a law so apparently lawless, espec- 
ially when the occasions which seem to require it 
are so few. Hence, we associate the supposition 
of spontaneity with the '' impressional heredity" 
which we know exists, but the full power of 
which can never be measured, with the doubt at- 
tached. 

The case cited by Dr. Parsons, (and quoted in 
Herbert Spencer's Principles of Biology,^ by Ri- 
bot, and others, of two negro slaves living on the 
same Virginia plantation is curious and well at- 
tested, as the girl was sold to Admiral Ward and 
by him was taken to London and exhibited be- 
fore the Royal Society when she was fifteen years 
of age. Husband and wife were both black. 
Her child was white. In fear of her husband's 
anger at her suj)posed unfaithfulness, she tried to 
hide the babe from him by darkening the room. 
He procured a light and examined the child. 
Afterwards he said to his wife : " You were 
afraid of me because my child is white. I love 
her all the better on that account. My own fii- 
ther was white, although my grandfather and 
grandmother were both as black as you and I. 
Although we came from a country where white 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 119 

men were never seen, yet there has always been 
one white child in our family." Quatrefages, as 
quoted by Eibot, affirms that similar phenomena 
have occurred even in Africa. Eibot, " Hered- 
ity,^^ p. 195, quotes as facts of spontaneity those 
called by Zimmermann " exceptions in tempera- 
ment ;" e. gi, " a man who suffered extreme ago- 
nies when his nails were clipped ; another, when 
his face was washed with a sponge. For some 
persons coffee is an emetic, jalap a constipant. 
Hachre could not eat more than seven or eight 
strawberries without falling into convulsions, and 
Trisot could not swallow sugar without vomit- 
ing." 

Still we incline to the opinion that all varia- 
tions from type — seemingly spontaneous or other- 
wise — if not included under some law already 
named, are to be referred to the law of impres- 
sion ; and we find that Ribot makes the sound 
distinction between facts of spontaneity and a 
law of spontaneity — admitting the first, denying 
the second. 

If inquiry be made for the cause of transmis- 
sion, the answer is, " Physiology regards every 
living body as an aggregation of multitudes of 
cells, each of which has a vitality of its own, 
possessing three essential properties of life, 
namely: nutrition, evolution, and reproduction. 



120 _ CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Mr. Darwin's theory is, (" Vainations,^^ vol. 2, 
chap. 17,) that each cell reproduces itself. . . . 
This theory of physiological tramsmission is ap- 
plied psychologically on this wise : Force, or 
nerve- power, exists in every nerve-cell. These 
cells, reproducing themselves, impart their own 
special characteristics to the progeny, and thus 
give mental heredity.'' (" Heredity,'^ S. H. Piatt, 
p. 3.) " The cause of heredity," says Hackel, 
" is the partial identity of the materials which 
constitute the organism of the parent and the 
child, and the division of this substance at the 
time of reproduction." Psychological heredity 
has its cause in physiological heredity. 

The practical working of heredity is seen in 
national facts. E. g. The physical degeneracy 
of the French is accounted for by an able writer 
on the ground that parental affection and medi- 
cal science prolong the lives of multitudes of 
weakly children to become the parents of a 
weaker generation. 

The deterioration of Spaniards is attributed by 
Galton to the fact that by martyrdom and im- 
prisonment the nation w^as drained of free-think- 
ers (^. e., independent thinkers) at the rate of 
1000 persons annually for 300 years. 

" Heredity transmits, preserves, accumulates." 
In its constitutional and temperamental union, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 121 

however, is its chief interest in this investiga- 
tion. The constitutional diatheses have already- 
been sketched. The temperaments are thus dis- 
criminated by S. E. Wells. (" New Physiognomy ^^ 
pp. 100-109.) 

The motive, or mechanical, distinguished by 
predominance of bone and muscle^ strong ten- 
dency to angularity, firmness of texture, energy 
and endurance. The ancient Eomans, and the 
Americans are types of this temperament. The 
Diana of Grecian sculpture is a classic example 
of the same slightly modified in art. Its exces- 
sive development is seen in the Farnese Hercules, 
and the dying gladiator. 

The vital, or nutritive, characterized by pre- 
dominance of the vital organs, rotundity, great 
activity, love of play, impulsiveness, brilliancy 
rather than depth, good livers, fond of stimu- 
lants. This is the temperament of women. Ex- 
treme, it becomes the lymphatic constitution. 

The mental, or nervous, marked by predomi- 
nance of brain and nerves, slight frame, slender 
neck, high forehead, chest not large, great sensi- 
tiveness, vividness and intensity. This is the 
temperament of literature, art, and poetry. Mor- 
bid, it runs into the nervous diathesis indicated 
by quickness and intensity of sensation, sudden- 



122 CHPvISTIAX HOLINESS. 

ness and fickleness of determination and morbid 
impressibiiity. 

Now, if we remember that physical perfection 
consists in a proper balance of the temperaments, 
and that by heredity the nervous diathesis con- 
loins wdth the mental temperament, or the vital 
temperament w^ith the lymphatic diathesis in a 
double heritage of bad conditions, and even some- 
times a double diathesis transmits a quadruple 
leverage of degeneracxj, we can but feel how hope- 
lessly imperfect is the organism with which such 
unfortunates begin the tremendous struggle of 
life 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE RELATION OF THESE LAWS TO PERSONAL 
RESPOI^lSIBILITY. 

By personal responsibility is meant individual 
answerability to God ; — that upon which the re- 
wards and penalties of eternity will be predicated. 

No more momentous question can possibly be 
asked concerning anything than whether it affects 
personal responsibility ; and, if so, to what ex- 
tent, and in what manner. With deep solicitude, 
therefore, we approach this branch of our subject, 
and in humble dependence upon the enlighten- 
ment of the Holy Spirit, seek the answers with- 
out which this philosophy must be incomplete 
and unsatisfactory. 

1. Personal responsibility is modified by two 
principles, namely : 

1. There must be sufficient knowledge (or 
opportunity for knowledge) of the facts or rela- 
tions concerning which responsibility is affirmed, 
to constitute a basis of obligation. 

Children cannot be held accountable for viola- 
tions of the rights of property, until sufficient 
knowledge has been acquired to give a com pre- 



124 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

hension of the distinction between nsine and thine, 
as a matter of right, and not merely of possession. 

The heathen cannot be held accountable for not 
laving and serving Christ, of whom they have 
never heard. 

So the Christian can only be answerable for 
the subject matter of his knowledge, not for that 
which he does not know, unless culpable neglect 
of opportunities for enlightenment can \e justly 
charged upon him. 

2. There must be sufficient power in himselj 
to act according to his knowledge, or, to avail 
himself of such gracious helps as will enable him 
thus to act. 

To know, and not to have the power to do, 
would be to load life with an insufferable burden, 
confuse the practical judgment as to the extent 
of possible obedience, and appall the heart with a 
sense of the injustice of the obligation involved. 

To love the Being who has imposed such an 
obligation, Avould be impossible. He might be 
feared and served ; but once thoroughly establish 
the conviction in any mind that He holds it ac- 
countable for that which it cannot do, either 
aided or unaided by grace, and that conviction is 
the tomb of love. The human mind is so consti- 
tuted that to suppose it capable of loving one in 
the relation of Creator so flagrantly unjust, is to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 125 

suppose it so mal-adjusted to itself that its deep- 
est instincts can be emptied of power, and its 
purest and most sacred love become enamored of 
the eternally unlovely. 

God seeks the love of men ; therefore he can 
never impose such obligations as will be an im- 
passable barrier to their confidence and affection. 
Hence, obligation only up to the limit of natural 
or graciously aided ability, is one of the most un- 
varying principles of his moral government, and 
one to which all men, unless biased by theologi- 
cal creeds, give their instant and hearty assent. 

That this principle has a broader application 
to the subject of Christian holiness than at first 
sight appears, will be evident when we come to 
treat of the practical relation of the abnormal 
physical states to the possibilities of Christian at- 
tainment. 

2. These principles applied to the laws of Chris- 
tian Holiness. 

1. The sufficiency of knowledge. 

Applying this principle to the third mental law 
of perversity, viz. : " The testimony of a faculty 
impeachable within its appropriate sphere," — it 
is evident that if that testimony be thus open to 
doubt, knowledge is to that extent vitiated. E. g. 
Suppose that the verdict of conscience as to per- 
sonal guilt be not true to fact, or the conscious- 



126 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

ness of penitence be chargeable with delusion, or 
the purpose of obedience be mixed with deception, 
or conscious reliance be illusion, or the presenta- 
tions of the judgment concerning the reality of 
God's claims be fictitious ; in any of these cases, 
and in many others that might be named, knowl- 
edge made up of such misleading elements must 
necessarily prove defective and most probably 
ensnaring. 

Therefore, if there be a duty of Christian holi- 
ness, that obligation implies the prior validity of 
the normal mental law of the trustworthiness of 
faculty-testimony. And conversely, if this law 
be accepted, the basis of the obligation is laid in 
the mind thus accepting, if there be anywhere 
any materials for a philosophy o-f the doctrine, or 
any convincing evidence of its truth. 

2. The sufficiency of Power, 

The first mental law of abnormal development 
has been stated (p. 78) to be that of " Perver- 
sity"— i. e., the regulative faculties non-control- 
ing. The sixth and sev^enth abnormal laws of 
spiritual development (pp. 90, 91) are " mental 
instability " and " excessive mental bias." The 
eighth, ** bodily infirmities" (p. 91), may be 
coupled with the fourth abnormal law of physical 
development and action, viz : " The law of in- 
heritance producing abnormal natures." (p 96.) 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 127 

To all these, this principle of power as related 
to personal responsibility, directly applies. It 
will be observed, however, that the principle is 
alternative ; t. e., it assumes sufficient inherent 
power to act according to knowledge, or sufficient 
inherent power to accept the offer of gracious help 
thus to act. 

Now, if the mental instability be too great for 
either exercise of this power with sufficient con- 
tinuity to constitute a state of salvation, there 
certainly can be no obligation to abide in that 
state. So, if mental bias be so excessive as to 
constitute an intellectual deformity irreducible to 
the symmetry of a sanctified condition, there can 
be no duty incumbent upon such to find that 
condition. So, if bodily infirmities have grown 
to the stature of a distinct species of abnormal 
humanity ; or, if the law of inheritance has devel- 
oped such a species — a lack of this power being the 
chief characteristic of the species — it is plain that 
the obligation to use such deficient or absent 
power can in no case rest upon such unfortunates. 

Were science sufficiently keen-eyed, there is no 
doubt that in all such cases the physical condi- 
tion of the brain or other nervous centers would 
be found to be at fault, and in many instances — 
far more than we think to be the case— there is 
practical subjection of the personality to the 



128 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

heredity or to the specific characteristics of an 
acquired unhelaied condition, even when the de- 
generacy has not reached to the extent of recog- 
nized insanity. 

The following propositions could doubtless be 
maintained : (1) There is a condition of the ner- 
vous system (more or less transient) in which im- 
pulse is the only law, (2) In persons of a certain 
temperament and constitution, that condition may 
be induced by circumstances. (3) Their respon- 
sibility for conduct while in that condition is 
graded by their previous responsible conduct in 
relation to the circumstances which induced the 
condition ; i. e., if they voluntarily placed them- 
selves in the midst of these circumstances, know- 
ing their exposure, they are accountable for re- 
sults, and vice versa. The unfortunate victims of 
dipsomania (alcoholism) may be cited as illustra- 
tions. 

Hence it follows that if there be laws of Chris- 
tian holiness binding upon such persons, those 
laws must be modified to suit the disabilities of 
those to whom they are applied. Moreover, as a 
further consequence of this view, God must be as 
well pleased with their gracious attainments un- 
der their special lay\7s, as he is with the larger at- 
tainments of the better-favored under their higher 
. laws. But his pleasure iu their attainments 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 129 

should be considered entirely apart from the gen- 
eral standard of Christian consistency with which 
the conduct of other believers is compared. The 
injustice of requiring such constitutionally imper- 
fect ones to display the same exterior that we 
have a right to demand that others shall exhibit, 
is much like that which would expect of a 
shattered epileptic the strength and service of a 
stalwart son. 

All this may be theoretically accepted by some 
who at the same time demur to its practical util- 
ity. But if such will remember that impossibili- 
ties grade downward in life through almost in- 
surmountable difficulties, very great and grave 
hindrances, warring antagonisms, damaging im- 
pediments, and simple obstructions to spiritual 
progress, they may be led to consider that some- 
what is due to the weary and almost hopeless 
toilers up the slippery steeps that lie just this side 
of impossibility, more than to those who are never 
called to climb such perilous places. Without 
indorsing the extreme views of the following ex- 
tract, we insert it as expressive of the justice-born 
questionings that will arise in reflective minds, 
and which we think are better answered, in point 
of principle, by the graded responsibility above 
named, than by the poet's hypothesis concerning 
Paul. 



130 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

THE CHEMISTEY OF CHAEACTEK. 

John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul — 
God in his wisdom created them all ; 
John was a statesman, and Peter a slave, 
Eobert a preacher, and Paul was a knave. 
Evil or good, as the case might be, 
White or colored, or bond or free, 
John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul — 
God in his wisdom created them all. 

Out of earth's elements mingled with flame, 
Out of life's compounds of glory and shame. 
Fashioned and shaped by no will of their own. 
And helplessly into life's history thrown ; 
Born by the law that compels men to be. 
Born to conditions they could not foresee, 
John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul — 
God in his wisdom created them all. 

John was the head and the heart of his State, 
Was trusted and honored, was noble and great ; 
Peter was made 'neath life's burdens to groan, 
And never once dreamed that his soul was his own ; 
Eobert great glory and honor received, 
For zealously preaching what no one believed ; 
While Paul of the pleasures of sin took his fill, 
And gave up his life to the service of ill. 

It chanced that these men in their passing away 
From earth and its conflicts, all died the same day. 
John was mourned through the length and breadth of 

of the land ; 
Peter fell 'neath the lash of a merciless hand : 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 131 

Eobert died with the praise of the Lord on his tongue; 
While Paul was convicted of murder and hung. 
John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul — 
God in his wisdom created them all. 

Men said of the statesman — '^How noble and brave;" 
But of Peter, alas ! "He was only a slave ;" 
Of Eobert — " 'tis well with his soul, it is well," 
While Paul they consigned to the torments of hell. 
Born by one law, through all nature the same, 
What made them differ, and who was to blame ? 
John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul — 
God in his wisdom created them all. 

Out in that region of infinite light, 

Where the soul of the black man is as pure as the 

white — 
Out where the spirit, through sorrows made wise — 
No longer resorts to deception and lies — 
Out where the flesh can no longer control 
The freedom and faith of the God-given soul, 
Who shall determine what change shall befall 
John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul. 

John may in wisdom and goodness increase, 
Peter rejoice in infinite peace, 
Eobert may learn that the truths of the Lord 
Are more in the spirit and less in the word, 
And Paul may be blessed with a holier birth 
Than the passions of men had allowed him on earth. 
John and Peter, and Eobert and Paul — 
God in his wisdom created them all. 



132 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

The special laws under which these unfortu- 
nates are held may be hypothetically stated — 
thus : 

(1) That of conscious integrity of purpose to 
live up to the limited possibilities of the case ; — 
a sliding scale, adjustable to all degrees of 
weakness, and obviously within the compass of 
every person concerning whom Christian respon- 
sibility can be affirmed. In its application it is 
not necessary that the subject himself shall be 
wisely able to discriminate as to exact shades of 
possibility, but in a general way shall be con- 
scious of a purpose " to do his bestJ' 

(2) An honest and habitual effort to carry that 
purpose out in conduct ; — another sliding scale, 
admitting very diverse degrees of practice, yet 
perfectly adaptable to the infirmities of this special 
species of our race. 

True, these laws might be affirmed as applica- 
ble to all men ; so they are ; but those whose 
regulative powers are normal, and adequately 
balance their impulsive and emotional nature, 
can square their conduct by more specific rules, 
hence the " mint anise and cummin " of the law 
are for their observance. 

2, In the possession of sufficient knowledge 
and power, the normal lavrs of Christian Holi- 
ness sweep through the entire field of personal re- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 133 

sponsibility. If the reader will return to Chapter V, 
pp. 74-77, 85-88, and read carefully with this in- 
quiry in mind, namely — Which of these mental 
or spiritual laws can be eliminated and leave the 
doctrine intact ? — he will at once perceive the im- 
portance to be attached to each several law, and will 
be constrained to admit that if any one of them can 
be supposed to be of no binding obligation, that 
supposition vitiates the whole ; for, if the regula- 
tive faculties are not dominant, others adverse to 
holiness are ; if faculties may trench upon the 
sphere of each other, confusion, and not cer- 
tainty, must result ; if the testimony of the facul- 
ties may not be relied upon, we have no testi- 
mony ; if acceptance of Christ may be dispensed 
w^ith, we need no Christ ; if submission to the will 
of God be not imperative, then rebellion may be 
piety ; if entire consecration be not enjoined, then 
we have self-rights superior to God's rights ; if 
reliance upon the guidance and sustainment of 
the Holy Spirit be not necessary, then are our 
deeply-felt and oft-asserted weakness and blind- 
ness frauds in the interests of godliness ; if pro- 
curement of the special helps of the Holy Spirit 
be of no account, then are we competent of our- 
selves to exorcise all the demons of habit and in- 
heritance that possess us. 

Surely, no sincere hater "of sin will take a posi- 



134 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

tion leading to such logical results. We are 
therefore entitled to urge respect for all these 
laws upon every Christian conscience, and to em- 
phasize the urgency by all those yearnings after 
increased goodness and longings for practical 
efficiency which should characterize every child 
of God. Here, if anywhere, the least suggestion 
of conscience should be heeded. Here, rather 
than any elsewhere, should the Spirit's drawings 
be felt and followed. 

Even this much may be readily granted by 
some who, however, would pause here and hesi- 
tate to admit that the like reponsibiiity attaches 
to the laws of normal physical development, 
(pp. 92-93.) 

It seems so easy to assume that our bodies are 
our own, to be dealt with as we please wdthin the 
limits of ordinary prudence, that a Divine claim 
like this sounds harsh and exacting, namely : "Ye 
are not your own ; ye are bought with a price : 
therefore glorify God in your bodies and in your 
spirits, which are his." Can he be glorified in 
the needless violation of any of the normal laws 
of physical development ? If so, then is his house 
" divided against itself/' Then also is the author- 
ity of nature abrogated by her most honored sons, 
and human caprice — ravenous as appetite and 
fickle as fancy — is enthroned to sway a scepter 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 135 

of lawlessness over the empire of these " temples 
of the Holy Ghost." 

Yet a moment's consideration of the possible 
functional or structural results that might ensue 
from the customary violation of any of those laws 
— as well as of the practical impossibility of fix- 
ing any standard of responsibility in relation to 
these things, if violation may, innocently, at any 
time, or in any respect, be arbitrarily decreed 
without the justification of a superior moral in- 
terest — must convince every candid mind that 
here in the realm of physical law^s, as well as in 
the domain of the mental and spiritual, responsi- 
bility must be predicated. That is, the man who 
has a body under the dominion of certain laws of 
health, and whose body, by the culpable violation 
of thosp laws, will react injuriously upon the men- 
tal or spiritual states, or both, is under the same 
principles of obligation to honor the laws of 
health that he is to obey the laws of spiritual de- 
velopment ; and for the all-sufiicient reason that 
he transgresses the laws of spiritual life in the 
very act of breaking those of physical health. 

We readily concede the practical impossibility 
of an absolute observance of the laws of health. 
The exigencies of our every day life constrain us 
frequently deliberately to sacrifice them to what 
we deem higher interests, and when we do so, as 



136 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

we may conscientiously and righteously, the act 
undoubtedly falls ^vithin the compensative 
scheme of Providence, by which loss in one direc- 
tion is made up by gain in another. But this is 
entirely different from those culpable violations 
which can plead no higher interest in extenua- 
tion of their guilty being — mere indulgences, the 
demand for which springs out of the roots of self- 
life and carnality, and the enjoyment of W'hich 
fortifies selfishness, and encourages a spirit the 
exact opposite of the self-denying spirit of the 
gospel. Such indulgences can never be habitu- 
ally enjoyed without a corresponding spiritual 
loss ; therefore there is no room for them within 
the area of Christian liberty. Not that they 
necessarily utterly alienate the life of God, nor 
yet are incompatible with a considerable degree 
of saintliness, but that they are defects which in- 
crease the friction, while they also reduce the 
strength of the spiritual machinery — without cor- 
respondingly reducing the work to he done. 



PART II.— CHAPTER I. 

THE THEORY OF CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

1. Man lias a three-fold nature — spirit, soul 
and body. (pp. 29, 30,) 

2. The spirit has a trinity of faculties or en- 
dowments utterly differentiating it from the soul ; 
namely, consciousness, conscience, and intuitions 
of futurity, (pp. 30, 31.) 

3. Its consciousness affirms the existence of its 
conscience and intuitions, and also its universal 
judgment, from these, of moral obligation. 

4. Its consciousness affirms that the demand 
which its conscience makes is that of perfect obedi- 
ence. 

5. Its intelligence apprehends a law of obedi- 
ence, given in the word of God, and a future 
existence conditioned in kind, at least, if not in 
duration, upon conformity to that law. 

6. The consciousness affirms that in attempted 
conformity, as well as in a common disinclination 
to seek conformity, very grave difficulties are met, 
called depravities, (pp. 7-14, 22, 24, 27.) 

7. Its intelligence finds revealed in God's 
word a plan of grace, by which, upon certain 
conditions, supernatural aid is proffered in over- 
coming these difficulties. 



138 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

8. A careful analysis shows that after that 
plan is accepted in regeneration, and while the 
btate of justification continues, those difficulties 
inhere entirely in the soul and body. 

9. Hence the proper and legitimate work of 
Christian life is — 

1. To continue in a regenerated state. 

2. To seek the complete complemental condition 
of soul and body, in which they shall be the fit, 
iinobstructing and unperverting instruments of 
the pure spirit. 

3. That complemental condition to be reached, 

(1) By substituting out every old habit of soul and 
body which is inimical to the spirit's purity, or 
obstructive of the spirit's will, or untruly repre- 
sentativ^e of the spirit's condition ; and 

(2) By securing the revolutionary power of the 
Soly Ghost, by which instantaneous changes, 
structural or otherwise, are made in answer to the 
desire and faith of the human spirit, equivalent 
— in its removal of embarassments, and in its sub- 
stitution of right processes of thought and feeling 
— to the substitutional w^ork of years of disci- 
pline. 

4. That complemental condition to be main- 
tained by securing a fresh application of the rev- 
olutionary power of the Holy Ghost upon every 
occasion when the process of development, or 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 139 

change of circumstances, brings to the foreground 
of conflict any revealment of want of harmony 
between the spirit and its instruments — soul and 
body. (pp. 26, 27.) 

10. In the progress of Christian life, when 
previously acquired habits, such as the use of in- 
toxicants, tobacco, opium, etc., are found to oppose 
spirituality, testimony too multitudinous to be 
disregarded, and too intelligent and respectable 
to be impeached, proves beyond question that the 
revolutionary power of the Holy Spirit can in a 
single instant remove the appetite, so that there- 
after not a desire shall be felt for the old indul- 
gence."^ Usually, this is only done in answer to 
the faith of the subject ; but the writer has known 
at least one instance (in the case of an intimate 
friend) where the desire for tobacco was eradicated 
in answer to the prayers of another, unhelped by 
any prayer or religious consideration of any kind, 
or any preparation, either mental or physical, on 
the part of the subject, so far as he has been able to 
discover after a critical review of his mental 
states at the time. 

^ ^'The Power of Grace,^^ by the author of this treatise, 
is a record of numerous examples of this truth, to which 
the reader is referred for further information upon this 
point. Dr. Daniel Steel, in " Love Enthroned,^' has a 
good chapter (the 12th) upon this subject, largely made 
up of extracts from Rey. W. H* Bool's justly celebrated 
** Wonders of Grace.'' 



140 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

11. When diseases are found detrimental to 
piety by reason of the peculiar nervous condi- 
tions which they produce, or for other reasons, 
the power of the Holy Spirit can instantaneously 
extirpate them in answer to the divinely suggested 
and divinely lieljped prayer of faith. 

What we mean by " divinely suggested '' and 
" divinely helped," is precisely what Paul meant 
when he said, " Likewise the Spirit also helpeth 
our infirmities," (what infirmities?) "for we 
hiow not what we should pray for as we 
ought;'' (how then does He help this special- 
ized infirmity?) "but the Spirit itself mak- 
eth intercession for us with groanings {arvmyiioiq^ 
sighings) which cannot be uttered." (Eom. 8 : 26.) 
But how does that help us? "And he that 
searcheth the hearts " (wherein these Spirit-ex- 
cited groanings are) " knoweth what is the mind 
(^(ppovTifxa^ inclination) of the Spirit that (margin) 
he maketh intercession for the saints according to 
the will of God:' (Verse 27.) 

Now, turning to 1 John 5 : 14, 15, we read : 
" And this is the confidence that we have in him, 
that if we ask anything according to his ivill, he 
heareth us." How ? By his knowledge of the 
spirit's inclination. What then ? " And if we 
know (by our spirit-excited groanings) " that he 
hear us, whatsoever lue ask, we know that we 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 141 

have the petitions (o^irrjiia, ashing^ " that we 
desired of him." It certainly is not unreason- 
able to suppose that what God has promised, he 
will sometimes thus help our prayers for. 

The next verse, 1 John 5 : 16, gives a divine 
application to the verse above, " If any man see 
his brother sin a sin which is not " (by divine de- 
cree) " a sin unto death, he shall ask " (as above, 
"according to the will of God ") and he shall give 
him" (the suppliant) "life for those" (not for this 
sinning brother only, but for all for whom he 
thus asks) " that sin not unto death." 

With this express and, so to speak, constitu- 
tional provision in the gospels for physical cures 
written 50 years after the Savior's death to Gen- 
tile converts and believing Jews, as if on purpose 
to project the privilege off into post- apostolic 
times, we turn to James, and find that 30 years 
before he had given this explicit direction : " Is 
any among you afflicted ? let" (expressing either 
privilege or obligation) "him pray. Is any mourn- 
ing ? let " (privilege or obligation again) " him 
sing psalms. Is any sick among you ? let" (again 
precisely the same privilege or obligation as in 
both the other cases) " him call for the elders of 
the church : and let " (the same obligation or 
privilege in this case) "them pray over him, 
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord ; 



142 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

and the prayer of faith shall save ((twC^, heal, 
recover) the sick, and the Lord shall raise him 
up : and if he have committed sins, they shall be 
forgiven him." (Jas. 5 : 13-15.) 

This was an apostolic direction given to the 
church "amid the twelve tribes scattered abroad," 
either commending a certain privilege, or enjoin- 
ing a certain duty in a class of cases particularly 
specified. Thirty years roll by, and the patri- 
archal apostle John, gathering in his eye the 
necessities of further authoritative announcements 
of privilege or duty, gives to the world the pas- 
sages above cited, enlarging the privilege of faith- 
cures from that of church-elder's intervention 
and anointing, to that of Spirit-helped ^ra^/ers 
alo7ie ! Thus the privilege passed from apostolic 
times into the world's later history. 

12, When the natural appetites, by reason of 
excessive development, or deficient regulative 
power, prove a hindrance to spiritual growth, the 
Holy Ghost can so re-adjust them to the trusting 
spirit that they shall become instruments of de- 
light either indulged or denied, as may be found 
in God's order. 

No more fatal foe to deep spirituality exists 
than is found in the bad conditions and unfavor- 
able relations of the sexual appetite ; yet multi- 
tudes suflTer on most of their lives, scarcely or 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 143 

never suspecting the real cause of their trouble. 
Yet a prudish public sentiment refuses to allow 
the discussion of the subject in works designed 
for general circulation, utterly banishes it from 
the pulpit and the school-room, and even from 
the sacred confidences of the pastorate, and 
therefore remands it to be locked up amid the 
mysteries of medical lore, or to be treated in 
those special works which are read only by the 
few, largely because, not having the advantage 
of the regular book trade, they can only be cir- 
culated by special means and therefore are nec- 
essarily too expensive to secure very general cir- 
culation. To attempt its discussion in these pages 
would be to invite the condemnation of the suici- 
dal sentiment referred to, hence all that the 
writer can do is to direct the reader's attention to 
judicious special works of this class, by a peru- 
sal of which he may complete the theoretical 
view but glanced at in the beginning of this par- 
agraph.* 

"^ The writer knows but two books which present 
this subject in full from the ^^raa'o^^s stand-point indicated 
above. There are many that contain good advice, faith- 
ful warnings, etc.; but ^' Princely Manhood " for men, and 
" Queenly Womanhood^^ for women, are the only works, 
so far as the author knows, that present the height of 
Christian privilege in this all-important matter. These 
works are having a large circulation, as helps in the for- 
eign missionary fields of India, Burmah, etc. 



144 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

13. If a conjecture may be hazarded as to the 
modus operandi of the Holy Spirit's revolution- 
ary processes, it is this : Recalling the statement 
on pages 49, 50, that the human spirit stands in 
the relation of a higher nerve-center to the pe- 
ripheral ends of the nerves of communication of 
the hemispheres of the brain, sending down its 
influences through all the complicated mechanism 
of which the hemispheres are the crown ; so, we 
suppose that the Holy Spirit in connection with 
the human spirit stands in the same relation. 
And, just as the nerves may be made pathways 
for the electric current to travel over, intensify- 
ing nervous energy as it goes, so that the power- 
ful ohock of a forty-cell galvanic battery anni- 
hilates apparently incurable sciatica at a blow ; 
so, the current of Divine Life sweeping down 
upon the hemispheres, enveloping the sensori- 
commune and the cerebellum, piercing through 
the medulla, thrilling along the spinal cord, and 
permeating and exalting every nervous center, 
may instantaneously dash neuralgias of habit and 
sciaticas of desire clear out of the organisms in 
which they had rooted apparently for life. 

14. Whether the Holy Spirit instantaneously 
changes the form or structure of brain-cells or 
blood-corpuscles from a habit-diseased to a cured 
condition, as when the drunkard is in a moment 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPE^^IENCE. 145 

disenthralled from the tyranny of desire; or 
whether the dominancy of the law of emotion (or 
its physiological equivalent) holds the desire in 
abeyance until new and healthful forms and 
structures are built up, it is of little consequence 
to know. But the law of emotion — as an equiv- 
alent for a sanctified soul, in its operations upon 
those who die spirit-regenerated but soul and 
body unsanctified — is of importance as a seem- 
ingly correct hypothesis to account for entire 
holiness in heaven, following only partial sancti- 
fication on earth, with no intermediate work of 
grace. 

This law of emotion may be thus stated : A 
person may be suffering intense longings for some 
habitual indulgence, narcotic or stimulant or 
passional, and while thus tortured with ungrati- 
fied desire, the sudden cry of "fire !'' from his 
dwelling, or of "murder !" from the street, will 
instantly sweep the desire from his consciousness, 
nor will it obtrude itself again until the cessa- 
tion of the suddenly aroused emotion of fear or 
solicitude. The emotion of joy — as by the unex- 
pected return from sea, of a long-mourned son — 
has the same expulsive power. Were the pre- 
ponderance of the emotion long enough con- 
tinued, there can be no doubt that new processes 
would be instituted which would effectually erad- 



146 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

icate the habitual desire, and substitute some- 
thing akin to theprevailing emotional experience. 

May it not be that when all the partially sanc- 
tified Christians of earth shall stand amid the 
radiant glories of the celestial land, and listen to the 
rapt hallelujahs of the angelic hosts, and gaze upon 
the wonders of that holy sphere, their own souls 
meanwhile thrilling with the ecstatic conviction 
of everlasting safety and unspeakable blessedness 
— may it not be that then an emotional experi- 
ence shall seize and possess them, so absorbing, 
so continuous, so supreme, that all soul-desires 
shall be not merely quiescent, but rapturously 
harmonious ? And may it not be that in view of 
this certainty of soul-sanctification by the law of 
emotion, God graciously proposes to give to all 
his saints a complemental body-sanctification in 
the resurrection — {/icoiia Tzveofiaruov^ spiritual 
body. (1 Cor. 15 : 44.) 

15, Applying to this subject the "pan-genesis" 
hypothesis of Darwin (see H. Spencer's Principles 
of Biology, Vol. I., p. 65) the inference seems clear 
that sanctified parents may transmit godly pre- 
dispositions to their ofi*spring ; for, if " gemmules 
springing from modified nerve-cells are trans- 
mitted to the descendents," each "possessed of 
force, of life, of tendencies" (Kibot, '^Heredity/' 
279), and if this be a reasonable explanation of 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 147 

the possibility, universally admitted, of the ^'ac- 
quisitioji of new instincts,^^ and if '^psychological 
heredity has its cause in physiological heredity, 
and this in turn has its cause in the partial iden- 
tity of the materials constituting the organism of 
both parent and child, and in the division of this 
substance at reproduction" (which is pangenesis), 
then modifications effected by spiritual forces are 
just as transmissible as any other, and even more 
than most others, because they are associated with 
the deepest convictions, the strongest emotions, 
the most changeless principles, the supreme pur- 
poses,and the dominant habits of the parent's being. 
What Dr. Bushnell called the "out-populating 
power of the Christian stock," is thus seen to have 
a basis in the very method and process of 
heredity. 

Yet it should be borne in mind that this godly 
heritage is, at best, only a predisposition toward 
righteousness — not righteousness itself, not even 
so strong in its leanings as to be neces- 
sarily or even greatly preponderating — a pre- 
disposition like any other ; subject to all 
the modifying influences of association, edu- 
cation, personal volitions, constitution and 
temperament, yet a vantage ground of mo- 
tive in the desperate struggle with sin — an an- 
chorage of nature to the right amid the storms of 



148 _ CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

passion — a mortgage of God upon the domain of 
self — a linking of parental lidelity to oneness of 
destiny ! 

16. Possible sanctifications may be divided into 
three or four classes ; namely : 

1. Normal; Avhen under the ordinary opera- 
tions of grace, as stated on pp. 25-27, the whole 
nature is harmonized into conformity with God's 
will. 

2. Neuropathic ; (borrowing a word from path- 
ology) when the reactions of the nervous centres 
are so far impulsi^^e and emotional, that health — 
not grace — is their proper regulator ; and when 
conjoined with this pathological condition, is a 
state of spiritual aspiration and purpose which, 
under more favorable physical conditions, would 
ensure normal sanctification. 

3. Super-normal; when a diseased condition 
obstructive to normal sanctification is removed 
in answer to the divinely-suggested prayer of 
faith, and the sanctification of the nature is con- 
current with the cure. 

4. Theoretically, we are inclined to name Emo- 
tional as still another possible species, even in this 
world ; for it is possible to conceive such circum- 
stances of religious emotion, so long continued, 
and so unalloyed with the movings of old habits 
of evil, that they might be substituted out before 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEPvIENCE. 149 

they could give further evidence of continued ex- 
istence. But this is of importance only as sug- 
gesting how the emotional element may be made 
subservient to the process of normal sanctification. 
Let it be distinctly understood that in all these 
species of sanctification, the only real purifier is 
the Holy Spirit. It is the various modifications 
of his operations that are thus classified. 

17. These species of sanctification may be found 
in the same person at different times, and when so 
found may be regarded as the equivalent of each 
other ; E, </., one may glide from a state of nor- 
mal holiness to the neujupathic by the inroads of 
disease, wherein the apparent and sensible grace 
enjoyed seems diminished to a perilous minimum ; 
yet, in God's sight, the neuropathic may be then 
the full equivalent of the normal. So, he may 
mount from this deplored condition through the 
super-normal to almost giddy heights of apparent 
and sensible grace, yet never reach a higher mark 
upon the scale of God's appreciation than when, 
despite the crazy spasms of lunatic nerves, the 
Spirit held immovably to its trust. 

18, The outward evidences of a sanctified state 
will be found to be peculiar to the species enjoyed. 

1. In the normal, the evidence will consist 
mainly in the perfect harmony of spirit and de- 



150 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

meanor with the will of God as expressed in cir- 
cumstances. 

2. In the neuropathic, the outward evidence 
may be entirely wanting until the subsidence of 
nervous agitation, and even then may be discern- 
ible only to those whose intimacy with the patient 
enables them to detect the desperate clingings and 
heroic resignations of the tossed and tortured 
spirit amid the storms of disturbed energy that 
dash fitfully over the nerve-highways of feeling 
and action. 

3. In the super-normal, in addition to the nor- 
mal evidence, there will be the marked contrast 
between present external and internal healthful- 
ness, and the former external passional and emo- 
tional symptoms of the internal disease. 

19. By these discriminations, the anther hopes to 
smooth the way for the large-hearted charity that 
certainly should be exhibited by the possessors of, 
and the aspirants unto, the sanctifying grace of 
the Holy Spirit. 

If the lines be rigidly drawn, as is too often the 
case, along the boundaries of the normal experi- 
ence exclusively, and all who do not habitually 
dwell within them are coldly — not to say in some 
instances, cruelly — ^judged to be culpably short- 
coming and wickedly inconsistent, it is difficult 
indeed to preserve the sweet, Christian brotherli- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 151 

ness, which ought to characterize this state of 
grace as its most winning feature, free from a 
a tinge of the "I am holier" feeling. 

"Judge not that ye be not judged," has here an 
application at once necessary, fitting, and su- 
premely Christly. 



CHAPTEK II. 

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

1. To assumed facts. 

1. "To the reality of any such experience as 
Christian holiness in this world." 

Answer: (1) It is affirmed as a veritable per- 
sonal fact by great numbers in various denomina- 
tions, who cite in confirmation of it many Scrip- 
ture promises, prayers^ exhortations, commands, 
etc., which certainly seem to blend into harmoni- 
ous accordance with the yearnings of the Chris- 
tian heart, and the testimony of the lips and lives 
of these confessors of this faith and experience. 

(2) The number, character and intelligence of 
many of these persons, not only entitle their tes- 
timony to respectful hearing, but to devout con- 
sideration as well, while the acknowledged cul- 
ture and analytical capacity of not a few of its 
advocates (professed experimentalists all of them) 
justly merit the most searching examination of 
the truth-seeker. 

(3) If such an investigation is to be made, we 
know of no method so rich in promise of success 
in the interests of truth as a well-conceived and 
carefully-executed philosophy of the subject. A 
genuine philosophy of a system of error — as a 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 153 

scheme of truth — is an impossibility ; for long be- 
fore the asserted facts shall have been tabulated, 
principles elaborated, forces classified, and laws 
evolved, the utter confusion of the elements of 
philosophy will have demonstrated beyond a 
doubt the hollow falsity of the disguised pre- 
tender. On the other hand, if facts are found to 
range themselves in systematic order ; if princi- 
ples that are in harmony with all related truths 
have marked clearly defined channels, through 
which forces of known existence, clearly separa- 
ble and fully adequate, operate under the guid- 
ance of laws of consistent uniformity and constant 
stability; ^Aen is there a demonstration of truth, 
so nearly absolute that he who doubts does so 
under the impulse of a skepticism too obstinate 
to be convinced, and too reprehensible to be char- 
itably overlooked. This treatise may fail to reach 
the ideal of such a philosophy, but truth enough 
has been found to authorize the confident expec- 
tation that some more successful toiler will reach 
the sun-lit summit in God's good time. 

2. "There is an underlying assumption that the 
consciousness correctly reports the true state of 
the heart." 

Answer : If the objection means anything, it 
certainly denies the assumption. But let us an- 
alyze the stater^ent. (1) What is the "state of the 



154 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

heart" referred to ? Evidently, it must be that 
concerning which responsibility may be affirmed. 
Any other state of heart has no relation to this 
investigation. (2) What "report" is expected, 
or is of any moment in relation to those states of 
heart ? Certainly a true report. (3) Does the 
"consciousness" make such true report concerning 
those states of heart for which the individual is 
held responsible ? As we have seen on page 123, 
the very idea of responsibility implies knowledge; 
but our internal states are only known to us in 
consciousness ; therefore consciousness must make 
a true report, else our knowledge is deception, 
and our responsibility is a delusion. 

3. "It is assumed, as a fact, that Christians are 
not made entirely holy by a single act of sancti- 
fying grace." 

Answer : It is. It is not asserted that they 
cannot be, but, as a matter of fact, that they 
usually are not. "Sanctification up to the measure 
of light and obligation," is the doctrine pro- 
claimed with emphasis by many — perhaps by 
most, of the advocates of Christian holiness. But 
the limitations named, at least imply a possible 
increase of light and augmentation of obligations, 
which, if they ever occur, will most surely call 
for sanctification on beyond the old horizon ; and if 
so, to call that ^'entire'^ holiness which lay only 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND* EXPERIENCE. 155 

within the area of the vision, is to leave a more 
than entire holiness to be attained as the radius of 
view lengthens ; therefore the application of the 
superlative term to the partial work, glorious and 
complete as it is within its bounds, seems mislead- 
ing. 

There may be cases in which the work is ac- 
complished at a stroke, and in which the Spirit 
witnesses to its entireness ; but we have misread 
experience if that is the usual fact. 

We have recently met with an experience ex- 
pressed substantially in these words, viz, : "When 
I consecrated myself, it comprehended every- 
thing, conscious and unconscious, present and 
future, so that I have no struggle nov>\ If any- 
thing new comes up it is provided for beforehand, 
and I simply accept the will of God. The cleans- 
ing was complete. All that I now have to do is 
to accept, quietly and peacefully. The work of 
cleansing was done once and forever." 

We desire to give full credit to such experi- 
ences, be they few or many, and to those who 
seek purity with a considerable degree of com- 
prehension of what they seek, gained by previous 
Christian experience, there may be a suggestion 
of grand possibilities of attainment on the line of 
such a consecration and its complemental faith. 

But whether an inexperienced believer, who 



156 CHKISTIAN HOLINESS. 

knows as yet comparatively little of the nature of 
"inbred sin/' can make such a consecration, not 
merely in purpose, but as an abiding causal con- 
dition of spirit, so that its pervasiveness of sur- 
render shall instantaneously penetrate all possi- 
ble juxtapositions of heart and ciicumstance as 
they arise may be open to grave doubt. 

It is said that God saves us, "not according to 
what we can see, but according to his promises." 
Yes, if he be trusted to save according to his 
knowledge of our need. But, as a matter of fact, 
our faith generally comprehends only what ice 
Jcnow ; therefore we do not really believe for any 
cleansing beyond our knowledge. Hence, if there 
be "in the depths of our unconsciousness'' perver- 
sities that will sometime be revealed, either God 
saves beyond our faith, if the cleansing be entire, 
or, he leaves this unknown perversity to be 
treated, subsequently, precisely as he did those 
which are now embraced within our faith, but were 
not known to us at the time of our conversion. 

4. "The assumption seems to inhere in the very 
conception of this book, that Philosophy is com- 
petent to deal with this question without the aid 
of Revelation." 

Answer: Nothing can be further from the 
truth. The author cherishes a most profound 
reverence for the Sacred Word, and all through. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEEIENCE. 157 

the land-marks of our philosophy are fixed by the 
principles and precepts of that Book of books ; 
but hundreds of works are in existence, treating 
the subject from that standpoint, while, so far as 
can now be called to mind, but one has attempted 
a philosophical elaboration, and that with nothing 
like systematic thoroughness. If the doctrine be 
true, a philosophy of it must be possible ; for all 
truth can be systematized after a philosophical 
method, if only there be enough related facts to 
furnish the key of the system, since facts are only 
"the sum of laws,'' and facts and laws verified be- 
come science. Surely, then, it may be permitted 
to one or two plodders in this hard field to work 
their way as best they can, and leave to others 
the sweeter task of plucking the purple clusters 
that hang ripe and luscious over all their paths. 

2. VerbaL 

"The phraseology employed is unusual, and 
will not be understood." 

Answer : Every author has a right to use such 
words as he deems best for his_ purpose, provided 
that if he adapts phrases from other branches of 
science, art and literature, he uses them only in 
their legitimate sense ; and further, that he 
clearly defines words of unknown or doubtful 
significance. 

The anatomical, physiological, pathological and 



158 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

psychological words used in this treatise are most 
open to the objection. But the author has en- 
deavored to keep the two provisos above named 
in view ; and the intelligent reader who ponders 
the book (not skims it, as he might a sentimental 
novel, or even some "popular science" treatise) 
will find little difficulty in ascertaining the mean- 
ing intended to be expressed. 

3. Logical, 

1. "So much concession is made to the materi- 
alistic theorists of the age, that the logical out- 
come of this book must be a direct sense of irre- 
sponsibility, or such a diminution of the power of 
motives as practically to amount to the same 
thing, on the part of the ' unfortunate ' ones who 
are badly organized." 

Answer : At first sight this objection has 
weight, but the paramount question is — not what 
use perverted organisms may put it to, but — 
should the concessions be made in the interests of 
truth f We need have no fear that in the end 
truth will work otherwise than well. God's king- 
dom is not a "house divided against itself" He 
will care for the outcome of his own ; and truth 
is his. But the objection is not well-taken, for if 
the reader will turn to pp. 124-127, he will there 
sec how emphatically a graded responsibility is in- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 159 

sisted upon, on purpose to meet the case of those 
who could not be included in the ordinary cate- 
gory of responsibles without the most glaring in- 
justice. 

2. '* You limit free-will in the proportion that 
you extend heredity." 

Answer : Free-will and heredity are opposite 
poles of the same truth. Just where the equator 
lies, may be difficult to determine ; but that fact 
does not impeach the reality of the existence of 
- either pole. For aught that we know, indeed, 
most probably, the equator is a tortuous line, 
winding with deep loopings in both directions, 
and perhaps never long-continued upon a single 
parallel. It is true that "determinism has be- 
come a scientific commonplace," and that free- 
will, in the sense of "that property of the subject 
whereby it reacts against the determining causes, 
and in consequence of this reaction determines 
certain acts," is hotly denied by many leading 
scientists of the times. 

But Wundt, as quoted and accepted by Eibot 
— Heredity, p. 341 — has very clearly shown that 
there is a "personal factor" back of all determin- 
ism, — "that which in us is inmost, and which dis- 
tinguishes and difierentiates us from what is not 
ourselves, .... by which our ideas, our sensa- 
tions, our volitions are given to us as ours, and 



160 . CKEISTIAN HOLINESS. 

not as the phenomena of something outside of 
ourselves/' (p. 343.) 

Ribot attempts to show, however, that even this 
personal factor has "heredity in its very germ," and 
despairingly adds: "The question becomes perfectly 
inextricable — an enigma within an enigma. . . . 
We touch here upon that region of the unknow- 
able to which every inquiry into first causes in- 
variably leads. Here science ends, and it is as 
little scientific to hold with the fatalist that there 
exists in the universe only an absolute determin- 
ism, without exception, as to say with their oppo- 
nents that determinism is only a lower mode of 
existence, lying outside of and beneath free-will." 

But whence the necessity that this antithesis, 
mechanism and spontaneity — determinism and 
free-will, shall be reduced to unity ? Is it not 
perfectly conceivable that the limited determin- 
ism of heredity may be pre-determined to pro- 
duce a possible spontaneity amid the inter-lock- 
ings of mechanism ? In other w^ords, may it not 
be within the unvarying order of hereditary 
transmissions that one " personal factor," v>ith 
freedom as its function, shall be the product of 
each reproduction ? 

Dr. Carpenter has arrayed all his wealth of 
learning and professional acumen in the effort to 
prove that free-will is the scie^itific deduction 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 161 

from acknowledged facts, while others of equal 
note have held rigidly to the doctrine of mechan- 
ism in physics, mind and morals. Why need we 
to be disturbed ? However far heredity may 
crowd free-will toward the verge of extinction, so 
long as it is, its responsibility is graded by its 
powxr, and if it be in any case pushed over the 
brink, its responsibility goes with it, and leaves 
l^eliind only the form of the rose, from which the 
fragrance and beauty have passed away, while the 
form is locked in the embrace of forces as fixed 
as fate. 

3. ^'The use made of the doctrine of heredity is 
illogical, because education is more powerful than 
heredity." 

Answer: ^'The special aim of education is to trans- 
mit to the child the sum of those habits to ivhich heis 
to conform the course of his life, and of those 
branches of knowledge which are indispensable 
for him in the course of his calling ; and it must 
begin by developing in the pupil the faculties 
which will enable him to make these habits and 
this knowledge his own. "When once it is ad- 
mitted that education, a long, watchful, laborious 
training, is indispensable in order to call forth 
and perfect in the child the development of apti- 
tudes and mental qualities, we must conclude that 
the heredity acts only a secondary part in the 



162 ^ CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

wonderful genesis of the moral individual. The 
argument is unassailable. That hereditary influ- 
ences make their mark in predispositions, in fixed 
tendencies, it were unscientific to deny ; but yet 
it would be inexact to pretend that they implic- 
itly contain the future states of the physical be- 
ing, and determine its evolution." — Popular Sci- 
ence Monthly, 

This is certainly as strong a statement as the 
facts will vv^arrant. While in the main it may be 
correct, it makes no allowance for those vicious 
and passional tendencies which so frequently de- 
velop, notwithstanding the most careful education ; 
so that the real truth seems to be that weak her- 
edities are overborne by training, while the strong- 
er manifest their power even after long-continued 
adverse discipline. We take the facts as they 
exist, without regard to relative strength of mod- 
ifying forces ; therefore, if our u.se of them be 
germain to our subject, it must be legitimate. 

4. " The doctrine of heredity, as here taught 
and applied, seems to load parents with a degree 
of responsibility fearful to contemplate.^' 

Answer : It does. But if a consumptive father 
and mother beget a child, does the sad prospect 
of bringing another human being into the world 
to suSer and die — appalling as it may seem to 
them — ever shield the child from the virus of 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 163 

disease? Nature is a kind mother within the 
laws of health; but outside of those laws her 
stripes are so certain, so severe, and so relentless, 
that sometimes it seems almost as if the mother- 
kindness were turned to demon-malignity. So, 
in the field of morals, responsibility and power 
are coupled in a yoke that draws evenly and 
needs to gall but little ; but when the power is 
germinal, and may produce an untamable crea- 
ture, who may riot around the field and bellow 
hoarse defiance to all authority, Responsibility 
shrinks from such a yoke-fellow. Yet here, as 
in disease, system, law, authority reign. And if 
the parent trembles in view of the dread possibil- 
ities of the case, he may also rejoice in the sweep 
of the rich, beneficent and compensative possibil- 
ities that lie concealed in the holy word, "parent." 

4, Theoretical, 

1. ^^ T he classification of sanctification gives too 
much ground to self-exculpation." 

Answer : God wants enlightened, not blinded, 
children ; hence, if there be a basis in fact for the 
discriminations made, we need have no fear that 
our Science, made out of his facts, will harm his 
cause. Besides, if the objection has weight in this 
connection, it has the same against all enlighten- 
ment in matters of disease, wherefrom might be 



164 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

gathered excuses for inaction in the interests of 
health. 

2. ''In attributing depravity to the soul and 
body, the plain teachings of the Scriptures are ' 
denied, and a doctrine of the old Grecian philos- 
ophy is foisted into Christianity.^' 

Answer : If our position be correct, it is none 
the worse for its Grecian paternity. If it really 
contradicts the Bible, one or the other must go 
down, and yv'e may be very sure the Bible will 
not ; but a seeming discrepanc}^ only may not 
necessarily be fatal. Dewey (^'Problem of JEuman 
Destiny,'' pp. 92-97) argues strenuously in behalf 
of body purity, and throws the entire responsi- 
bility of perversion upon the mind. Such seems 
to be the doctrine of Matt. 15 : 19, 20, "Out of 
the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- 
teries, fornications, theft, false witness, blasphe- 
mies ; these are the things which defile man ; but 
to eat ydth unwashed hands defiieth not a man.'' 

But we should remember that these sayings of 
the Savior were designed and understood (at 
least by the Pharisees) as an attack upon the 
Pharisaical doctrine of the supremacy of ceremo- 
nial observances. He did not even raise the 
question whether the moral defilement was resi- 
dent in the body, soul, or spirit, but simply de- 
clared that the fruits of indwelling evil were de- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 165 

filement, while a non-observance of a mere cere- 
monial act was not defilement. True, he charac- 
terized these indwelling evils as *^of the heart ;" 
but when we call to mind the facts (as found up- 
on a hasty examination, and not claimed to be 
precisely accurate) that six distinct Hebrew 
words and two Greek words are translated heart 
in our version, and that those six Hebrew words 
are translated also by at least nineteen other 
English words besides heart, and that the two 
Greek words occurring 120 times in the New 
Testament are used in twenty-tw^o different 
senses, and that our English w^ord heart has 
about twenty different meanings, few will be dis- 
posed to base a doctrine upon such an indermin- 
ate expression. 

Moreover, admitting all that we claim relative 
to the habit-perversions of soul and body, it is 
strictly true that, though murders, adulteries, etc., 
may be flesh-born, they must be will-adopted be- 
fore they can appear in words and deeds, and 
therefore they always manifest heart-defilement. 
Hence we find no antagonism whatever between 
this passage and the statements of this treatise. 
Nor can we recall any passage which unequivo- 
cally declares that the seat of the "roots of bit- 
terness" — "the carnal nature" still surviving in 
those who are in a justified state— is in the spirit 



166 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

or .moral nature, as distinct from the soul and body. 

3. "The asserted eradication of artificial appe- 
tites is all a delusion^ since no man can be sure 
that the appetite supposed to be taken away, will 
not suddenly revive/' 

Answer: That there are physiological and, 
therefore, psychological difficulties in the doc- 
trine, we will not deny. But, if we are under an 
economy of supernatural and, therefore, super- 
physiological grace, the difficulties do not con- 
cern us. The whole question is one of fact, to be 
determined by testimony under the ordinary rules 
of evidence. And here we hazard the opinion 
that no man who has carefully examined the evi- 
dence, dare to affirm either: (1) That the wit- 
nesses do not give clear, intelligible and uncon- 
tradictory statements of what they believe to be 
their own personal experience ; or (2) That they 
are not as competent as ordinary men to under- 
stand their own experience ; or (3) That they are 
not as truthful as ordinary men ; or (4) That 
there are not thousands of them all testifying to 
the one point of eradication of artificial appetites 
by grace. 

We demand, therefore, that their evidence shall 
be accepted, or that the objector shall exhibit his 
authority for discarding such evidence, merely be- 
cause it does not coincide with his theories. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 167 

The supposition that the appetite may suddenly 
revive is altogether without weight, because many 
of the witnesses have lived many years after its 
extirpation, and it has never revived. If the subject 
were to fall into habitual sin, it is very probable 
that the law of association or the '^residuum" of 
the old condition might again cause it to appear. 

4. "The doctrine of * faith-cures' belonged to 
the early church, passed away with it, has no 
foundation in fad in these times, and tends to 
fanaticism." 

Answer: (1) Many testimonies are given in 
"these times" with a great degree of particularity 
of the actual and successful use of this early 
church privilege. See '^Dorothea Trudell ;" Dr. 
C. Cullis' ''Cures by Faith f' ''My 25th Year 
Jubilee,^' by the author of this treatise (detailing 
his own cure after 25 years of lameness) and 
many other similar works. 

(2) Many of these narrations cannot be im- 
peached upon the ground of defect of piety, or in- 
telligence, or special predisposition to, or habitual 
indulgence in, extreme and fanatical views on the 
part of their authors. 

(3) The cures are not denied. 

(4) But they are attributed by objectors to one 
or more natural causes, such as hopeful nervous 
excitement, imagination, etc. 



168 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

(5) If they are such cures as this book advo- 
cates, they are wrought by Spirit-suggested and 
Spirit-helped faith. 

(6) Such faith is a subjective mind and spirit 
exercise, in the very nature of the case known 
primarily, and perhaps only, to the mind con- 
cerned. The causation lies necessarily beyond the 
view of all others, and can be recognized only in 
the consciousness of the sdippliant. 

(7) But mere natural forces can and do in 
multitudes of cases produce the same results of 
physical healing. 

(8) The real question in a genuine faith-cure 
is — not what might have done it, but — what actu- 
ally DID it ? It is a question of fact, not possi- 
bilities. If a man and a boy stand side by side, 
either of w^hom can throw a stone through a 
neighboring window, and a stone is actually 
thrown by the man, it is useless to say that the 
boy could have done it, or even that he has been 
in the habit of doing such things. Did he do it ? 
That is the point, and the only point, to be settled. 

(9) Just at this point, many good Christian 
men are guilty of a piece of audacious assumption, 
rivalled only by that of the most conscienceless 
skeptics of all the ages, in utterly ignoring in 
the subjects of cure, the consciousness of theiii 
Spirit-helped FxVith. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 169 

(10) By the same process, and with equal jus- 
tice and right, the skeptic may repudiate these 
objectors' consciousness of personal salvation, and 
attribute the external ch*ange wrought in their 
conversion, to policy, fear, or any other of the 
natural forces that is known to effect similar ex- 
ternal revolutions in conduct, and ihtj are utterly 
powerless to reply ; for they have put the process 
into the the hands of the caviler, with the em- 
phatic endorsement of their own example. Dur- 
ing five years of patient waiting and careful 
watching, the writer has read everything that has 
fallen under his notice upon this question, and 
with especial interest all the replies to his own 
"25th Year Jubilee," and he will here record the 
fact for the astonishment of men, that not one has 
appeared that was not emptied of all logical and 
scientific value by this cardinal defect — viz: 
Ignoring the consciousness of Spirit-helped faith. 
We call upon objectors to rally to the assault of 
this one citadel of the faith-cure doctrine, and to 
conduct their approaches in such a way that 
atheists and infidels shall not be able to explode 
their own mines under their home-foundations, or 
else cease this endless endeavor to "steady the 
ark'^ of Grod, as if he were not able to care for his 
own cause. 

(11) But the doctrine "tends to fanaticism," 



170 CPIRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

still responds the objector. If GocVs promises 
are anything more than meaningless tantaliza- 
tions of human hope, their fulfillment will always 
and necessarily tend io fanaticism, if by that 
w^orcl is meant zealous and fearless proclamation 
of vdiat God has done for personal deliverance. 
But if "wild and extravagant notions of religion" 
(Webster) are meant, then the ansvrer and the 
denial are contained in the very condition of the 
Spirit suggested arid Spirit-helped prayer. 

5. " Sanctifi cation is a work of grace, and can- 
not be supposed to produce any direct physical 
effects. Therefore, there can be no foundation 
for the hypothesis that brain and nerves are sub- 
ject to spirit-influence as is stated on page 144.'' 

Answer: The objection assum.es too much. We 
know but little of the mysteries of life. The facts 
of mesmerism (now admitted by all men of sci- 
ence) are as far beyond explanation, and seem 
quite as unreasonable, as the supposition objected 
to. Again : Take the facts of human Hibernation, 
of which many unimpeachable examples are on 
record. One of the most celebrated of these is 
that of a fakir, " who was actually buried alive 
at Lahore, in 1837, in presence of Runjeet Sing 
and Sir Claude Vv^ade, and who was dug up and 
restored to consciousness several months after- 
ward, after every precaution had been taken to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 171 

prevent anyone from disturbing the grave in the 
interval." A recent issue of the Druggists^ Cir- 
Gular gave an extended account of the long and 
painful preparation, extending through years, 
through which the fakir passes before submitting 
to the hibernating state. After all it is only a 
little more marvelous than the forty-days' fast of 
Dr. Tanner. 

Now, until men explain these wonders, we see 
no particular sagacity in denying that the Holy 
Spirit can touch physical sensibilities, affect 
nervous conditions, or even change brain-cells if 
need be. That he does affect physical sensations, 
is proven beyond a question. 

From the Life of Bishop Hamline, by Dr. Hib- 
bard, we take in his own words the following ex- 
perience : "Suddenly I felt as if a hand omnipo- 
tent, not of wrath but of love, were laid upon my 
brow. That hand, as it pressed upon me, moved 
downward. It wrought within and without, and 
wherever it moved it seemed to leave the impress 
of the Savior's glorious image. For a few min- 
utes the deep of God's love swallowed me up. 
All its billows rolled over me." 

Dr. Daniel Steele's Love Enthroned, p. 280, 
says : " Suddenly I became conscious of a mys- 
terious power exerting itself upon my sensibilities. 
My physical sensations, though not of a nervous 



172 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

temperament, in good health, sitting alone and 
calm, were like those of electric sparks passing 
through my bosom with slight but painless shocks, 
melting my hard heart into a fiery stream of love. 
Christ became so unspeakably precious that I in- 
stantly dropped all earthly good — reputation, 
property, friends, family, everything — in the 
twinkling of an eye, my soul crying out : 

* None but Christ to me be given — 
ISTone but Christ, in earth or heaven/ 

He stood forth as my Savior, all radiant in his 
loveliness, ' chiefest among ten thousand.' Yet 
there was no phantasm or image, or uttered word, 
apprehended by my intellect." 

Such testimonies, from such sources, hush all 
cavil as to the facts alleged. 

6. " Too much stress is laid upon the sugges- 
tions of the Holy Spirit in the absence of any 
adequate criteria by which to discriminate them 
from those of our own minds and those which 
come from Satan." 

Answer: There are criteria by which the 
Spirit's suggestions may be known. His sheep 
" know his voice." (John 10:4.) 

Spirits may know thought-voices as well as we 
do the voices of friends. His voice has certain 
characteristics, which can be apprehended and 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEEIENCE. 173 

recognized by the sheep. These characteristics 
are:- — 

(1) There is no uncertainty in his utterances. 
His tones are never disguised either by accident 
or purpose. Friends sometimes imitate the tones 
of strangers or others in order to test the power 
of recognition of those whom they attempt to de- 
ceive. But his voice never assumes what belongs 
to another. It is always itself — pure and simple. 
Neither are his words ever equivocal. Ko double 
meaning can be attached to them. Nor are they 
ever mere sound without substance, or emptied 
of authoritative significance by weakness of ex- 
pression. He never says, *' Perhaps it would be 
well to do this or that, or to refrain from doing ;" 
but always — positively, " Do T' or, " Do not T' 

(2) If simulation or any other element of un- 
certainty (causing honest doubt) is present, his 
voice never requires recognition without giving 
time for investigation. Hence, great haste in a 
suggested duty, unless the voice be recognizable 
at once as his, is proof that the suggestion is not 
from him. He is not a hard master, demanding 
obedience in advance of rational conviction of 
obligation. 

(3) His voice always issues from an open door 
of his providence ; i. e., where there is a real sug- 
gestion of present duty from him, there is always 



174 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

an opportunity corresponding with the suggestion. 
His voice and providence work together. Hence, 
an urgency to go immediately in a way not open 
cannot spring from the impulses of the Spirit. 

(4) His suggestions always correspond with the 
principles of the Word. Upon a certain occasion 
the writer positively promised a congregation that 
the meeting would be closed immediately after 
another short prayer. As soon as the prayer was 
concluded, a brother rushed across the platform 
and begged permission to exhort, which was 
promptly denied, very much to the chagrin of the 
brother, who was greatly offended, because *^ the 
Spirit commanded him to talk.'' But the writer 
could not see how or why the Holy Spirit should 
desire him to falsify his word before the congre- 
gation. Hence, he regarded the suggestion to 
exhort as proceeding from a " zeal not according 
to knowledge," rather than from the Spirit of all 
truth. So, if our duty absorbs all our energies 
at the moment, it cannot be our duty at the same 
moment to do anything else whatever ; for the 
Scriptures enjoin us '' to do with our might what 
our hands find to do." 

Such are the characteristics of His voice, which, 
if carefully noted, and judiciously applied, will 
solve nearly all questions of duty. But there is 
another test — 1 John 4 : 2 — " Hereby know ye 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 175 

the Spirit of God : Every spirit that confesseth 
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." 
'. The incarnation was then the battle-ground be- 
tween God and Satan. To accept that fact was 
to side with God. It is not so now. Satan him- 
self admits that fact. Hence, some other test is 
now requisite. Here it is — 1 Cor. 6 : 19, 20 — 
" Ye are not your own : for ye are bought with a 
price ; therefore, glorify God in your body and 
in your spirit, which are God's." This is the sub- 
stitute for the other, because it reiterates the fact of 
incarnation, gives it3 logical result — " Ye are not 
your own" — and lays down the consequent moral 
obligation : " Therefore, glorify God in your body 
and in your spirit, which are God's." 

This moral obligation is 7iow the battle-ground 
between God and Satan. Hence, any suggestion 
of duty that is in perfect accordance with this 
moral obligation, and at the same time has the 
voice- qualities that have been stated as belonging 
to Him, may be safely acted on at any time, and 
all results may be confidently left at his disposal. 
Beloved, " Try the spirits," whether they are of 
God. 

7. " I can find nothing in the Bible about pe- 
culiar constitutions." 

Answer : Very well. Does the objector find 
anything there that denies the fact that some 



176. CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

men have peculiar constitutions? If not, its 
silence upon this point is no more evidence against 
that fact than its silence concerning multitudes 
of other facts universally admitted to be true, is 
evidence that they are not real. There are some 
things that do not need to be revealed, and so 
general are the provisions of grace that there may 
be no call for special recognition even ; yet they 
may have an important place in a systematic pre- 
sentation of closely related truths. 

8. " There are remnants of the old depravity 
existing after regeneration." 

Answer : By this we understand is meant, with- 
in the spirit of the regenerated person ; for if it 
be affirmed of the soul and body, the objection in 
nowise differs from the views herein set forth. A. 
Nash, in '' Full Salvation, ^^ p. 18, says : ** A com- 
plete revelation of depravity in penitence would 
drive into hopeless despair." On the other hand, 
Crane, in " Holiness the Birth-right oj All God^s 
Children,^^ pp. 69-70, says : " If there is a single 
passage of Scripture which directly asserts that 
one born of God, and in a normal condition as a 
regenerated soul, still has a degree of depravity 
in him, where is that passage ? It is really sur- 
prising that a doctrine should go so long unques- 
tioned, when its ablest adherents show so scanty 
an array of Scripture, and prove so little by it. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPEPvIENCE. 177 

Wesley, in his sermon on ^ Sin in Believers,' cites 
but six passages to prove the doctrine, and not 
one of them clearly contains it.'' He then reviews 
the passages with the following results : (1) Gal. 
5 : 17 — spoken to a backslidden church, and not 
applicable to all genuine Christians. (2) 1 Cor. 
3 : 1, 3, 4 — written to those in the particular 
conditions named, and not applicable to others 
in a better condition. (3) 2 Cor. 7 : 1- — simply a 
strong appeal to continue in the love of God, not 
in any sense a confession. (4) (5) (6) The Spirit's 
address to the churches of Ephesus, Pergamos and 
Sardis. All these were to those who " had left 
their first works," hence could not be descriptive 
of those who had not done so. We are quite will- 
ing to leave the objection where Dr. Crane has, 
certainly until his trenchant argument is an- 
swered. 



PART III.— THE EXPERIENCE. 

Having in Part I. outlined the Philosophy of 
Christian Holiness, and in Part II. stated the 
Theory, perhaps too concisely, we now proceed 
to the more congenial, and we trust more profit- 
able, consideration of its Experience. We are 
fully aware of the points of divergence of this 
from other works upon the great theme, and are 
quite alive to the danger of erroneous deductions 
from positions so briefly stated, and sometimes 
apparently so overdrawn. Bat the reader should 
be reminded that in a work of this kind subjects 
that are made prominent by all writers upon the 
tLeme, may be stated here without the lengthy 
treatment that other points which have been gen- 
erally passed by absolutely require in order to 
receive the attention they deserve. E. g., The 
agency of the Holy Spirit — all-important as it is — 
is allotted less space than the physiological and he- 
reditary aspects of the subject. Were this book 
designed as an exact systematic presentation of 
the theme, this disparity would be an imperfec- 
tion ; but, in reality, this treatise is largely sup- 
plemental. It is a philosophy — very brief, but, 
it is believed, lacking in no element of a true 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE, 179 

philosophy. It is a theory — dangerously con- 
cise, yet containing all the elements of a correct 
theory. It is an experience in the sense of being 
a condensation and transcription of multitudes 
of recorded experiences, modified by those other 
phases of experience which have not been so fre- 
quently recorded, in the hope that some may be 
thereby aided to a better life, and others equally 
helped to more charitable views, and more en- 
couraging expressions. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRACTICAL DEDUCTIONS. 

1, Explanatory of the way. _ 

In view of the general demands of Christian 
consistency, it should now be. assumed that the 
reader who has patiently plodded through the 
two preceding parts of this work, is ready to go 
forward from this point as a seeker, if not already 
in the possession of the grace. His prayerful at- 
tention is therefore invited to the following state- 
ments : 

1. It is a way of positive self-assertion, "Con- 
sciousness of the validity of our efforts," is stated 
on page 72 asa J)rmc^p/e; and "The testimony 
of each faculty unimpeachable within its appro- 



180^ , CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

priate sphere," is declared on page 77 as a law. 
In these respects, therefore, the seeker must be- 
lieve in, and rely upon the trustworthiness of self 
with no degree of hesitation or wavering. For 
just in the ratio of his doubt or indecision here 
will be faltering and failure in the attainment of 
his object. Satan asks no better field in which 
to scatter his temptations than amid the endless 
perplexities engendered by a want of this kind 
of self-assertion. 

The humility that starts back alarmed at this 
statement, and shudders at self-reliance in all its 
forms, is a false or misguided lowliness. If w^e 
cannot trust our consciousness of honest effort to 
do our part, we cannot trust His promises, be- 
cause we can have no assurance that we have 
complied with their conditions. 

If we cannot rely upon our will to make a full 
and immediate surrender, w^e can never know but 
we are still rebels m. purpose and in fact. Hence, 
we must stand firmly and immovably upon the 
basis of a positive self-assertion in order to reach 
upw^ard to the higher standpoint of sanctified 
transformation. 

2. But it is also a way of the highest self-abne- 
gation, Eecalling the normal law^s of spiritual 
life as stated upon page 85, a glance will satisfy 
the most incredulous that the seeming opposites, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 181 

VIZ,, self-abnegation and self-assertion, can and 
must co-exist in the experience of the mature 
Christian ; self-assertion so far as it is necessarily 
implied in a conditional and confident faith, and 
self-abnegation as to acceptance of God's Christ 
and God's will. 

Yet, it is not a self-abnegation of the mystical 
sort that avows au utter " deadness" of the sensi- 
bilities to the impulses of the flesh and the entice- 
ments of sin. If such a state be attainable, and 
probably it is, it is an undesirable absorption 
which can never be of practical benefit to the 
world. 

Concerning our first parents, Caldwell, "Phil- 
osophy of Christian Ferfection/' p. 22, says : "Their 
natural sensibilities were susceptible of being ad- 
dressed and excited, in view of even forbidden 
and unlawful objects : and this excitement might 
innocently amount even to a conscious tendency to 
seeh their gratification in such forbidden objects, . . 
This alone can give temptation its eflect, and call 
forth the powder of moral resistance.'' We cannot 
hope to reach a better state in this life than that 
which they enjoyed. 

The self-abnegation which we insist upon in 
this connection is rather the emptying out and 
casting away of all the claims of self that come 
into competition with, or antagonize the claims 



182 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

of God, while clinging with even stronger tenac- 
ity to those which may be yoked into his service. 

3. Such self-abnegation necessarily implies en- 
tire consecration, i, e.y complete devotement to do 
the will of Him in whose favor self is denied. It 
may be an act, as when some specific revelation 
of God's will arouses the antagonism of self, and 
necessitates such a particular devotement, or it 
may be a state wherein a preponderating self-ab- 
negation settles beforehand all such antagonisms 
by a pre-ordained and pre-disposed submission — 
" that state of devotedness to God and his service 
required by the moral law." (Prof. Finney.) 
" A supreme reference to the will of God and 
glory of God in all things ; using and enjoying 
all as he wills we should ; disclaiming any rights 
that conflict with his rights ; pursuing such busi- 
ness, and in such manner as from our best light 
we believe i^ according to the will of God ; using 
all the proceeds of our labor precisely as we be- 
lieve God directs ; loving those objects, and in 
that degree, which he approves ; doing those acts 
which will be for his glory ; living in the world, 
but living for God : — whoever does this conse- 
crates himself to God.'' (Foster, " Christian Pu- 
rity;' p. 205.) 

Such a consecration has no looking after re- 
serve rights, no haggling after easier terms, no 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 183 

bargaining for future restoration of abandoned 
possessions, no seeking after special exemptions, 
but is just a fee-simple transfer of rights, inter- 
ests, claims, everything, to the sovereignty of God. 

4. It is a way of invincible resolution. No fee- 
ble purpose, no faltering will, can hold to this 
high-way. Stimulated by the intense desires that 
are quickened into power by the convictions of 
so grand a privilege and so imperative a necessity, 
the Will must survey all difficulties with un- 
blanching cheek and untrembling nerve, and 
march steadily forward to grasp a prize that will 
be yielded to no vacillating resolution. To find 
or die, to attain or perish ! is the battle-cry that 
must be hurled into the teeth of all oppositions, 
and must thrill with new inspirations every des- 
pondent moment, and every relaxing energy. 

Spirit-hunger that will find food ; heart-throb- 
bings that yearn to be hushed to rest ; soul-tem- 
pests that must surcease their wailings ; finite 
graspings that clutch and hold the Infinite — all 
these focalized in one imperious, commanding, 
changeless Resolve, swaying a present scepter of 
absolute dominion over the nature, and project- 
ing itself along the currents of life that flow into 
the future — such must be the determination with 
which the seeker for purity prosecutes his search. 



184 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Anything short of this is compromise in advance 
— almost surrender upon call. 

Let the reader stop just here, and ask the seri- 
ous question : Have I the self-assertion, self-ab- 
negation, consecration, and resolution which this 
great experience demands ? With introspective 
vision, let the heart-searching which this question 
implies, be deeply, thoroughly, persistently made. 
Let no surface work suffice. Let no voice of 
postponement be heeded. Now, here, in the 
presence of an unmeasured possibility of good, 
search the foundations, that you may build and 
build speedily upon the unyielding Rock. 

5. It is also a way of imquesiioning faith. 
Whether or not the suggestion from science be 
accepted, and the Holy Spirit be deemed to touch 
the periphery of the ideational nerves (pp. 50-51) 
with a Divine influence that goes down through 
the nature — thrilling thoughts, affections, will, 
and even sensations — it is most certainly to be 
assumed by the seeker that someivhere and some- 
how the Mighty Transformer can so touch the 
depravities of the my that the belongings of the 
spirit shall be rendered accordant with His will. 
O, what a touch is that ! So marvelously mould- 
ing — so transcendantly transforming ! Holy 
Spirit, bring it to the reader's heart ! 

But such gifts of God are not cast like sun- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 185 

beams on the world, whether the world be willing 
or not to feel their glow. They belong to the 
higher realm of free gifts upon conditions named. 
The one condition comprehensive of all others, 
upon which the touch of God is suspended, is, 
UNQUESTIONING FAITH. But what is that ? Let 
not the anxious reader expect an answer in a 
single sentence. Heart-work embraces much. 
To make haste we must move slowly until we are 
in the beaten way. The elements of this condi- 
tion-faith are the following : 

(1) A clear conviction that God has promised 
cleansing to me. No matter how strong may be 
my assurance that he has promised it to others, 
that will not suffice. I am the important factor 
in this problem. If to me he has pledged his 
sanctifying grace it is well ; but if to all others 
and not to me, I am nothing better. Just here 
assurance must be explicit and decisive. Not the 
shadow of a doubt may becloud it. 

Has the reader such a conviction ? If so, the 
way is prepared to move forward to another step. 

(2) The clear conviction that God's promise 
is conditional upon my performance of certain 
things, all of which I may know, and concerning 
which I may be positively sure whether I comply 
or not, and j ust when I comply if I do at all. 

A conviction as comprehensive as this should 



186 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

not be passed over without a second or even third 
reading. The word " conditioned" contains the 
very germ of all possibilities in this direction. 
He does give sanctifying grace to some. He does 
not give it to others. Since he " is no respecter 
of persons" — w^hy ? Because it is not a free gift, 
but a conditioned gift — i. e., a consequence de- 
pendent upon certain things that we may do or 
not, just as w^e choose, and if we do them the 
consequence will ensue, but if we refuse to do 
them it will not occur. 

Now, my conviction of the conditionality of 
this grace must be as clear and positive as my 
existing conviction that God has promised it to 
me. No hint even of any exception whatever 
may be harmlessly entertained for a moment. It 
may be had, but it can only be found in exact 
compliance with certain prescribed conditions. 

Further, these conditions I may know. Con- 
ditions that may not be known are not conditions 
in the religious sense. They may be excuses- for 
a tyrant, or reasons for a knave, but conditions 
they cannot be, because an elemental idea of such 
a condition is — a contingency within the will of one, 
upon which contingency the actions of another are 
dependent To suppose such contingency to be 
unknown to the first as a condition, is to suppose 
him to be within the realm of chance and not 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 187 

within that of free and responsible activity. 
Hence, that I may know the conditions is a con- 
clusion that must be as strongly affirmed and as 
resolutely adhered to as any fact bearing upon 
this subject. 

Still, further, knowing the conditions I may be 
certain whether I comply wdth them or not. To 
doubt on this point would be to question the 
truthfulness of our own consciousness, and by so 
doing utterly invalidate all knowledge. By the 
same testimony I may know just when I comply, 
for consciousness has no memory and no antici- 
pation. It is an on-living now : a seeing wdthin 
as interior facts transpire. 

Having these three convictions, viz,, knowledge 
of conditions, compliance, and time when, rooted 
deeply in the mind, then comes — 

(3) Undoubting confidence that just so soon as 
the conditions are complied with, God will imme* 
diately accomplish his part of the work, according 
to the principle laid down on page 67. No in- 
terval can be allowed for any reason whatever, 
because any supposable reason would thereby be 
deemed to be stronger than his i?! finite rejpulsions 
against sin. And if it could prevail to withhold 
the cleansing for one moment, it might for an 
hour, a day, a year, a life-time ! Such a conclu- 
sion cannot be admitted: therefore God's imme- 



188. CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

diate cleansing operation — upon the removal of 
the barriers — must be assumed so confidently 
that our consciousness of compliance Avith the 
conditions shall be the premise of a faith-logic, 
with a therefore as clear as a sunbeam and as de- 
cisive as fact ; and that ^'therefore'' must begin 
the assertion — ''He cleanseth me nowJ' 

(4) Then comes a desire for the blessing suffi- 
ciently strong to induce the compliance demand- 
ed. In some natures so sensitively adjusted to 
the right that to see duty is to begin its perform- 
ance, a very small degree of special desire may 
be sufficient, because of the imperiousness of con- 
science. But in most cases the will needs the re- 
inforcement of strong desire, and sometimes of 
vehement emotion even, to enable it to comply 
with the conditions required. Hence, if the seek- 
er still hesitates, and perhaps wonders why he 
does not take the decisive step, it may be well for 
him to feed his desires for purity by appropriate 
meditations, and by prayer for hunger ; also by 
much devout reading of God's Word and of the 
biographies of those who have enjoyed the grace. 
By these means he will most certainly find kin- 
dled within him an intense longing that will give 
to the moral nature all the stimulus that emotion 
is designed to impart, and thus, with all his re- 
serve power brought to the front, he will be able 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 189 

to *^niake the venture" from which he has shrunk 
so long. 

(5) Actual, conscious, present, complete com- 
pliance, (according to the conviction named as the 
second element of this condition-faith,) as a spe- 
cific act, for this particular end, is now needful. 
Coming up to this point in the use of even a 
large degree of consecration, and then waiting in 
a haze of dreamy semi-expectancy for "the fire to 
descend and consume the sacrifice," will not prove 
successful. Purity is clearness as well as clean- 
ness. Mists and fogs may sometimes mar clear- 
ness of vision in other things, but here the at- 
mosphere must be transparent. The validity of 
present observations, and the reliability of future 
calculations, will be largely afiected by it. Hence, 
he who would move surely in this "highway" must 
see clearly every step of the progress into it, and 
especially the one that he is about to make. 

A certain specified /compliance is demanded as 
an inexorable condition. Do I comply, or do I 
not ? If I do not, the matter is settled beyond a 
doubt, I cannot have the blessing. If I do com- 
ply, the matter is settled as conclusively as in the 
other case, but in the opposite way — I can have 
the blessing. 

If I do not know whether I comply or not, 
again the matter is settled adversely, for no posi- 



190 CHKISTIAN HOLINESS. 

live faith can ground itself vp on a negative! The 
faith that claims this coveted experience is a very 
positive one, and an equally explicit one. It does 
not deal in glittering generalities, nor rest upon 
" hope so" or " suppose so," but upon the calm, 
deliberate immovable hioiv so ; i. e., upon the 
knowledge of present, complete, compliance with 
the conditions named. 

(6) Then comes the consequent assumption that 
inasmuch as I have certainly complied Vvith the 
conditions, I now rest entirely and exclusively 
upon the veracity of God, and therefore do 
NOW RECEIVE within myself his sanctifying 
grace. As an intellectual act this assumption 
does not rest upon any sensible change, nor upon 
any perceived difference in the state of the heart, 
but solely upon two facts : First, That God has 
promised it immediately upon certain conditions. 
Second, That I do now fulfill those conditions. 

What then ? Joy may instantly spring up. 
A conscious change may at once supervene. 
Peace must be abiding. The witness of the Holy 
Spirit may be instantaneous. But if none of these 
except the peace be present, the seeker has simply 
to remain in the attitude of assumption here 
described, until it shall please God to add the 
witness, which certainly will come, and very like- 
ly in an unlooked-for moment. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 191 

At this point the reader should beware of the 
common tendency to look back into the heart to 
see if any change justifies the belief in present 
cleansing. That is to go by sight, not by faith ; 
but we are saved by faith, and the seeker has 
nothing to do with his heart, but simply to leave 
it in God's hands, while he believes. 

6. It is now a way of immovable trust Says 
Eev. W. H. M. Aitken in the " The School of 
Grace ;" 

" I read in a friend's book, not long ago, an 
extract which commenced with the following 
words : ' The longer I live the more profoundly 
am I convinced that the all-in-all of practical 
Christianity may be summed up in two words — 
submit and commit.' Truer words have seldom 
passed from human pen ; and this is the great 
lesson that grace by her gentle discipline teaches, 
and that the will of man has to learn. Submit, 
cease first from thy rebellious self-assertions, and 
next from thy proud efibrts to correct and amend 
thyself; and then commit — cast thyself into the 
hands of Omnipotent Love. Claim it of the new 
Adam that he shall, dwelling within thee, accom- 
plish, as he has undertaken, what thou canst not 
do, and regulate in peace and harmony, under 
his scepter, the once jarring and conflicting forces 
of thy nature. So shall there indeed be a great 
calm, a stillness, a rest within thy consecrated 
heart, and thou shalt be in a position to make 
proof of all the wealth of thy promised land — 



192 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

the land that flows with milk and honey — as thou 
proceedest to live, not only soberly, but righteous- 
ly and godly. Only let us take heed lest it should 
be said of thee or of me, reader, ' We see that 
they could not enter in, because of unbelief.' " 

This trust is the state of committal here de- 
scribed. It is a steady holding of self in the po- 
sition gained. There may be bending before the 
sweep of the flood, as the rush bends in the swol- 
len stream, but it is only that it may hold the 
better by the rootlets that penetrate beneath the 
flow. So, blasts of temptation may rush with al- 
most irresistible power over the spirit, and to out- 
ward seeming it may be prostrated by their fury ; 
but down deep amid the foundation purposes of 
being, one master-purpose may link it in unvary- 
ing consciousness to its anchorage in God, and 
when the storm is overpast, it will rise straight 
and strong as though it had never bowed to the 
tempest that strove to uproot it. There may be 
a cry of human sorrow that asks for light, and 
that light may be denied ; yet when sight fails, 
and reason falters, and love itself almost ques- 
tions, there will be a persistence in trust that will 
defy all blindness and weakness, and will go on 
clinging amid all storms and tempests, simply be- 
cause its only business is to cling. When once 
the conviction thoroughly permeates the nature 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 193 

that God does all the work of cleansing and 
keeping clean — the first upon the conditions 
named at length, and the second upon the fur- 
ther condition of our abiding trust— it is easy to 
comprehend that trust is the business of our lives. 
7. It is a way of determined and systematic 
avoidance of the abnormal. It will be well for the 
reader just at this point to return to page 88 and 
search ingly inquire, ** Is my acceptance of Christ 
complete, in the sense of measuring up to my 
needs ?" If this can be answered in the affirma- 
tive, then passing to page 89, let the touchstone 
of submission to God's will be applied ; and if 
no rebellion be found, then let present consecra- 
tion b^ compared with the demands of God's 
work ; and if it be not defective, and if no self- 
guidance or self-dependence mar the symmetry of 
Christian development, (page 90,) the conclusion 
may be reached that there is no criminal " neg- 
lect of the proffered aid of the Holy Spirit," and 
no spiritual abnormality now resident within. 
Now the safeguards of determined and systematic 
avoidance must be reared. Determination there 
must have been already, else the present experi- 
ence would not have been acquired. But sys- 
tem is needed as well. The outposts must be 
manned. Sentries must stand guard. Surprise 
must be prevented. Assault must be rendered 



194 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

fruitless. And when the march is commanded, 
ambush must be guarded against. All this means 
tireless watchfulness against the evils that no 
longer hold the citadel of the heart, and the ex- 
ercise of common sense in avoiding special ex- 
posures to them. 

But, while the reader who has thus carefully 
searched his foundations may be duly grateful 
for the grace given, there are certain mental ab- 
normalities that should receive attention. 

Mental instability and excessive mental bias 
(pages 90-91) have been named ; and should 
there exist any appreciable degree of either in 
the constitution, it should be disciplined with the 
utmost promptness and the greatest decision that 
can be summoned to the work. A candid reve- 
lation of the weakness to a judicious friend might 
be of great service. But prayer, watchfulness, 
and a careful development of the opposite traits of 
character mast be the chief dependence, and these 
must never be remitted for a day until the evil is 
corrected. 

Besides all this, there are Laws of abnormal 
mental development and action, specified as 
Perversity, pages 78-82, Irregularity ,page 82, 
and Distrust, page 84. These should be very 
carefully scanned to see if there be danger 
lurking there. If the reader be unfortunately 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 195 

afflicted with the temperamental perversity, his 
wisdom will consist in scrupulously avoiding 
temptation and all those causes of wrong im- 
pulses which experience has proved to be det- 
rimental, or which Reason declares from the 
nature of the case must be so. If, after all this 
care, the impulses sometimes or perhaps fre- 
quently sweep the nature beyond the moorings 
of prudence despite the resistance of the regula- 
tive faculties and grace, and notwithstanding a 
persistent consciousness of doing his best, then 
must the reader, with whatever sorrow of heart 
it may come, accept the sad conviction that he is 
blighted out of the ranks of normal humanity 
by some curse of heredity, and thereby consigned 
to the specific type whose highest sanctification 
has been described upon pp. 127-9, 148. 

But it is not probable, if it be possible even, 
that one who has passed unscathed through the 
searching ordeal of introspection here assumed, 
should be thus perverted. His danger is far 
more likely to be irregularity — the habitual dis- 
use, or excessive use of certain faculties. We 
cannot more clearly indicate what this is than by 
emphatically urging the reader to peruse with 
care what is said upon this point on pp. 83, 84. 
In this whole treatise we have studiously avoided 
useless amplification, but our sense of the practi- 



196 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

cal importance of this subject is a strong induce- 
ment to go at length into details just here. But 
let this hint suiEce to awaken the reader to a 
keen sense of imminent spiritual danger, if in 
his case each faculty does not do its own work and 
that only. 

If the full significance of this caution be now 
apprehended, let us add one more, viz. : Beware 
of the law of Distrust ! Page 84 tells why ; and 
he who would live this " higher life " must avoid 
all abnormal conditions of mind and spirit as he 
values success in his efiorts. Bat can it be sup- 
posed that this obligation stops with the mental 
and spiritual ? The laws of abnormal physical 
development and action have been laid down on 
pages 93-6, and so far as they are avoidable, there 
can be no question that he who would live purely 
before God must scrupulously abstain from all 
acts, and especially from all habits that would 
bring him under the dominion of those laws. 

Simple disturbance of function (p. 94) accord- 
ing to the organ implicated and the extent of 
the disturbance, may exhibit all the thought- 
changes depicted in " The Confessions of an 
Opium Eater," that is, from the uttermost depths 
of self-abhorrence and d Bspair to the topmost 
heights of phrenzied ecstacy, with no change 
whatever in external or moral relations. If it 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 197 

be assumed that this may be innocently done 
with no higher motive than self-gratification, 
then it follows that practical lunacy may be oc- 
casioned at pleasure with no violation of Chris- 
tian obligations, which is the same as to say that 
such obligations may be obliterated with no vio- 
lence to them, which is furthermore to affirm that 
there are no Christian obligations. 

If, then, temporary lunacy may not be inno- 
cently induced for the purpose of self-gratifica- 
tion, neither can any other derangement of func- 
tion that to any extent afiects thought unfavor- 
ably, be voluntarily produced without transgres- 
sion of the laws of Christian life. The same 
course of argument holds good in reference to 
" Organic change of functional products '' (p. 95) 
and organic change of tissues (p. 95). 

Man is not his own master. And if he were, 
his surrender to God in conversion leaves him 
with no reserve rights. As a Christian he be- 
longs to God. His mission is to glorify God. 
But professed reverence for God's written law, 
conjoined with known and purposed and habit- 
ual violation of his other laws, is at best a mixed 
and semi-rebellious service which can never meet 
the high demands of his rights and the interests 
of his kingdom. 

Let no one, therefore, who strives to walk in 



198 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

the " higli-way of holiness/' pollute it with in- 
dulgences that the laws of health and nature con- 
demn. And if he does, let him not lay the flat- 
tering unction to his soul, that God loves his pro- 
fession more than he does the laws that he has 
established " for a thousand generations." No ! 
His will is Ids, whether it be written on tables of 
stone, spoken upon Galilean hills, crystalized in 
marble strata, woven in tissues of nerve and 
flesh, sphered in worlds or tear-drops, mantled 
in evening's glow or maiden's blush, voiced in 
the harmonies of the spheres or the praises of 
his children ! His laws are his own, and are not 
to be tampered with to suit the convenience or 
the perversions of self-seeking mortals. 

Obedience is honor to him ! Unvarying def- 
erence is his glory. Determined and systematic 
avoidance of the abnormal is therefore a duty 
incumbent upon every one who would preserve 
" a conscience void of offence " and illustrate the 
glorious declaration of the apostle : "As he is, 
so are we in this world." 

2. Advisory as to methods, 

1. Make right discriminations as to what is re- 
quired. There is no more frequent hindrance 
than mistakes as to the nature and extent of the 
obligations attending this life of faith. (See 
Fletcher's Treatise on Christian Perfection, 32mo. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 199 

page 34.) Nor are these errors confined to the 
unintelligent or uncultured, for we often find 
them held by the most intellectual, educated and 
conscientious believers. Hence, right discrimina- 
tions at the outset may save from many a quick- 
sand on the journey. And if some of these dis- 
tinctions seem absurd and uncalled for, to some 
of our readers, they should remember that the 
human mind is the breeding-place of all manner 
of strange and foolish phantasies, and that the 
experience of the new birth gives no exemption 
in this respect ; therefore, if the critic be fortu- 
nately placed upon the high grounds of clear and 
extended views, he should pity the less favored 
who dwell amid the murky fogs which distort the 
objects of their vision, and rejoice at any efiFort 
for their good. 

(1) An exact correspondence of real with ideal 
Christian life is not to be expected. The ideal is 
the product of the imaginative faculty working 
under the stimulus of an active (possibly over-ac- 
live) conscience, and building up the materials of 
intellectual conceptions into character-forms. It 
is therefore purely artistic, ^nA. like all other forms 
of art ought to aim at perfection. Just as the 
Greek painter who, when required to paint the 
most beautiful female possible, caused to be 
brouo;ht to his studio a number of the most fault- 



200 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

less forms in the city, and selecting a hand of od<^, 
the bust of another, an eye of a third, the nose of 
a fourth, and so on, he combined these separate 
perfections into one figure that has been the mar- 
vel of the ages ; so, the Christian selects the 
meekness of Moses, the faith of Elijah, the zeal of 
Paul, the love of John, and all other excellences 
of other saints, and embodying them all in one, 
holds that group of perfections before himself as 
that to which he is to aspire — his ideal, Eeal 
Christian life, on the other hand, is the work of 
affections and will prosecuted amid all the per- 
versities of depravity, and all the oppositions of 
" the world, the flesh, and the devil." 

It would be most singular, therefore, if the 
creative faculty of the imagination should not de- 
velop a type of character that the will and the 
aflections thus burdened, would of necessity fail 
to realize in a corresponding experience. What 
then should be done ? Certainly not wear out 
life in hopeless efforts to reach the impracticable I 
If the ideal be not perfect at the outset, the very 
attempt to reach it exalts it, and the nearer it be 
approximated the further it verges toward fault- 
lessness. Hence it ever eludes the grasp of ex- 
perience. 

But there is one department of our being where- 
in there may be exact correspondence between 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 201 

the ideal and the real, viz., the intentions. We 
can intend to copy all the graces of all the saints 
just as far as the materials given to our hands 
permit the reproduction, so that if there be fail- 
ure it shall not be chargeable to our want of right 
purpose. But when the inevitable failure occurs, 
it must be set down upon the ledger of our re- 
sponsibility debited to constitutional infirmities, 
which, in a right state of the intentions, are cov- 
ered by the blood of atonement. Let the desired 
correspondence, therefore, between the ideal and 
the real be confined to the intentions, and all wdll 
be well. 

(2) A continued conscious environment of 
Deity, " keeping'^ the soul is not to be looked for. 
"If I do not sin, it is as good for me as if I were 
environed by the jasper walls and could not sin." 
— J. S. Inskip. These words point to a most im- 
portant truth, viz.. That the fact of sinlessness 
(in the Christian, not in the legal sense) is the 
test of goodness. If, then, we are kept from sin, 
the consciousness of the environing Deity is of 
little consequence, and its absence should occa- 
sion no disturbance whatever. 

(3) A constant stretch of spirit after the high- 
er, is not to be coveted. 

Wings must sometimes rest or droop and fail. 
Their soaring capacity and upward instinct ought 



202 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

never to cease, but the loftiest flights, especially 
in the fury of the storm, antedate the sterner ne- 
cessity for transient repose. The time may come 
when the spirit's soarings will be undisturbed by 
earthward calls, but now the body fetters, in (un- 
desired it may be, but during life,) indissoluable 
bonds of weakness every aspiring spirit, and the 
constant stretch is synonomous with a speedy 
break. Indeed, it is a fact well known to the 
physician, that a brain suffering for better nutri- 
tion — a better supply of arterial blood — often 
stimulates to a zealous life where the '" religious 
fervor is the measure of the cravings of the un- 
gratified physiological aspirations.". (Fothergill, 
^'Mental Aspects of Ordinary Disease," in Jour- 
nal of Mental Science.) 

Such being the case, we can well afford to at- 
tach but minor importance to the iininterrupted 
struggles of the spirit to reach loftier attainments, 
and content ourselves with such measure of ac- 
tive desire as will comport with healthful rest and 
sustained persistence of purpose. 

The apparent necessity of continual wrestling 
of desire, is in reality but another phase of the 
disposition, so common to beginners especially, to 
find satisfaction, if not assurance, in emotional 
states. 

(4) Complete control of the thoughts is not 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 203 

to be hoped for. Scarcely any point in the whole 
range of Christian holiness is of greater practical 
importance than this. So many write such bitter 
things against themselves because of ^Svandering 
thoughts," and such multitudes are engaged in a 
desperate, though really utterly hopeless struggle 
to " control" their thoughts, that any discrimina- 
tion that will self-sweeten the first and give some 
rest to the others will be a boon to be hailed with 
joy. First then, let it be carefully noted that 
thoughts are to a very great extent automatic, 
i, 6., They are the product of mechanism, and take 
their characteristics from their source. Now, lest 
the cry of materialism alarm the reader, let us 
hold in view certain facts, viz. : — 

((1)) "Sir Francis Beaufort (Brodie: Mind 
and Matter, p. 135,) when preserved from drown- 
ing had " every incident of his former life glance 
across his recollection in retrograde succession, 
not in mere outline, but the picture being filled 
w^ith every minute and collateral feature, forming 
a kind of panoramic view of his entire existence, 
each act of it accompanied by a sense of right and 
WTong." 

A schoolmate of our own boyhood had a sim- 
ilar experience, and a policeman — a parishioner 
of the writer — afiirmQd that when he was shot 
in the cheek-bone in attempting to arrest a crim- 



204 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

inal, he had instantly a perfect panorama of his 
entire life. Other cases might be quoted, but 
these are sufficient to show that in certain states 
of the brain thoughts arise independently of the 
will. 

We pjrant that these cases are extreme ; ^. e., the 
stimulatiug cause in each was all that the system 
could endure; but the effects "were extreme like- 
wise. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that 
a minor cause may produce a less effect, so that a 
quantitative relation between a congested brain 
and its product — involuntary thought — will be 
found to subsist through all gradations of cere- 
bral stimulation (unless carried to the point of ex- 
haustion or coma), and will often be of sufficient 
magnitude to be of importance in this connection. 

((2.)) Ordinary diseases, in many cases, have 
certain specific mental effects, e. g., a slight 
amount of bile in the blood, or an excess of renal 
products, *'may depress a man with hopeless 
despair or drive him into paroxysms of violent 
passion." ( '' Dr, Foihergill, Popular Science 
Monthly^' No. 35, p. 563.) 

" It seems even, that bodily pain and disease 
are not only compatible with, but may directly 
contribute to, the loftiest efforts of the intellect. 
They sometimes positively enhance its powers. 
The effect of some disorders and of certain sorts 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 205 

of pain upon the nerves is to produce a cerebral 
excitation ; and the stimulus thus communicated 
to the material organ of thought renders it for 
the time capable of unusual effort. . . . The 
v/onderful eloquence of Kobert Hall was doubt- 
less greatly owing to the stimulating influence of 
a terrible spinal malady. Dr. Conolly mentions 
a gentleman whose mental faculties never reached 
their full power except under the irritation of a 
blister, " W. R. Greg.—" The Enigmas of Life," 

The writer has observed in his own case that 
whenever he has been called to preach while suf- 
fering from a certain abdominal weakness to 
which he has been frequently subject, the efforts 
have almost invariably been characterized by a 
brilliancy and spirituality that have caused it to 
be matter of remark among the people, '' Our 
pastor preaches best when he is sick.'' 

" The mental attitude of sufferers from heart 
disease is usually one of caprice - unsustaioed 
volition ; together with suspiciousness and gro'i^nd- 
less fear, — imperfect emotional products." " The 
resultant product in gout is a blended compound 
of irritability and suspicion, bad temper and 
anxiety, the latter all the more aggravating from 
a consciousness that it is not mere illusion, but 
an emotional hallucination. Such individuals 
are the terror of their dependants. . . . There 



206 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

is such a villainous state of temper, at times as- 
cending to ferocity, that the person becomes 
simply intolerable ; the unfortunate sufferers 
themselves being still further tortured by the 
haunting impression that they are utterly un- 
reasonable and that their attitude does not arise 
from any provocation from without, but that it 
takes its origin in some abnormal condition ex- 
isting within.'^ (Shown by Dr. Garrod to be ex- 
cess of lithic acid in the blood.) *^ In one case 
well known to me the sufferer sought relief in 
religious exercises, in resort to her Bible and 
to prayer — it is needless to say without the de- 
sired result. . . . Well directed treatment pro- 
duced a restoration of the normal feelings which 
all the spiritual exercises had failed to achieve." 
The mental attitude assumed in cancer is " that 
of sullen and defiant submission to the inevit- 
able ;" . . . while in pysemia (alteration of the 
blood by pus) '^ from the first long shivering fit 
which marks the initiation of the fateful disease, 
the mental attitude is usually that of impertur- 
able indifference." — Fothergill. 

It is well known that in diseases of the lungs 
an utterly irrational hopefulness characterizes 
the progress of the sufferer down to the very 
gates of the grave, while in certain abdominal 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 207 

affections a depression that defies all hopefulness 
is equally marked. 

The physiological explanation is — that the 
abdominal diseases cause a depletion of the emo- 
tional nerve centres, while the lung affections are 
attended with a plethoric condition of those cen- 
tres, and the corresponding depression and exal- 
tation are mental symptoms of these physical 
conditions. It is an admitted fact that height- 
ened blood-pressure within the brain intensifies 
mental activity, and that excess of nitrogen in 
the blood tends to explosive irritability. 

Two very singular cases of religious interest 
occasioned by cerebral disturbance came under 
the notice of the writer. The first was that of 
an apparently remarkably healthy wife and 
mother, who had been brought up religiously, 
but had not previously manifested special interest 
in the subject. Having been sent for, we found 
her deeply interested, accusing herself of great 
wickedness, and tortured with the continual ob- 
trusion of thoughts too bad to be described. 

After suitable instruction and prayer she be- 
came perfectly calm and trustful, in the con- 
sciousness of forgiveness. Calling the day after 
we found her still trustful, but tossed with tides 
of evil thoughts that seemed to fill her being. 
"We at once commenced a searchino; investi2ra- 



208 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

tion, and found that her life had not been sucl 
as to give the material for such thoughts : there 
fore they were not called up by association 
That no effort of will, and no exercise of prayer 
relieved her, more than momentarily ; hence, the 
thoughts could not be the suggestions of Satan. 
A physical source seemed therefore most prob- 
able, and upon inquiry, she admitted that she 
had constant headache, unusual nervousness and 
almost utter sleeplessness. We at once advised 
her to abandon her case entirely to God, seek 
mental diversion in any practicable wa y, sleep at 
any cost, and send immediately for her physician. 
Within two weeks she was entirely prostrated, 
and at the request of the physician we saw her 
again, and found the mental symptoms seriously 
aggravated, and soon after she died. Did the re- 
ligious interest cause, or was it the consequence 
of the brain-disease? So far as her safety is 
concerned it does not matter. She exercised in- 
telligent faith in Christ, and such faith saves, no 
matter how it may be induced. Her interest com- 
menced when she w^as entirely alone, far removed 
from any religiously exciting cause. 

It was not violent enough to induce disease in 
so short a time. 

The faculties involuntarily exercised were con- 
sciousness, imagination and conscientiousness, to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 209 

which will and veneration stood opposed in cease- 
less struggles, which would not have been the 
case had the origin of the trouble been religioa3 
excitement. Therefore, the Christian experience 
was undoubtedly the result of cerebral excite- 
ment ; genuine nevertheless. 

The second case was that of an intelligent gentle- 
man who had carefully schooled himself in skep- 
tical notions, but who came to some revival ser- 
vices of an undemonstrative kind that the writer 
w^as holding in his own church. When the in- 
vitation was given for penitents to come to the 
altar for prayer, this gentleman deliberately arose 
in the middle aisle, laid off his overcoat, and 
walked to the altar. Soon the meeting concluded 
and a moment's conversation convinced us that 
something was wrong. Not from anything that 
was said or done, but by the expression of his 
eye. The next eve, he arose as before, came en- 
tirely around and within the altar and in a few 
concise and telling words declared his acceptance 
of Christ as his Savior. Within twenty-four 
hours he was a raving maniac. A few weeks 
treatment at the asylum, however, completely re- 
stored him, and nearly five years of consistent 
Christian life have attested the reality of the 
change. 

Jones, " Man Moral and Physical/^ p. 155, nar- 



210 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

raies the case of a New England preacher who 
arose to deliver his sermon, and instead an- 
nounced that he had backslidden. Two weeks 
treatment restored him. And pp. 215-17, he de- 
tails the case of an anxious mother, sleepless, 
fevered and agonizing, caring for nothing but 
the salvation of her children. Her physician 
wisely deemed the cause to be increased arterial 
action, and a few doses of tartar emetic restored 
her to a normal state. 

Dr. D. Uwins, referred to on page 54, claimed 
to be able to direct the current of thought as he 
pleased in his insane patients by the use of nar- 
cotics. Anaesthetics, such as ether and chloro- 
form, destroy consciousness and depress sensibil- 
ity, but leave movements free. Curare destroys 
the power of movement but leaves sensibility 
and will unimpaired. Alcohol and opium in 
small doses exalt mental action. Belladonna 
and Indian hemp pervert mental action, even to 
artificial delirium. The spondylium heraclium 
of Kamtschatka impels to suicide. Nitrous oxide 
stimulates to most intense action, usually with 
visions of beauty, w^hile carbonic acid gas stupi- 
fies into coma and death. 

We once knew a very profane man who w^as 
subject to frequent fits of intoxication, each end- 
ing in helpless stupor : but at a certain stage he 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 211 

rarely failed to mount a cart, stone wall or other 
elevation and j^reacli to his associates, delivering 
addresses full of religious sentiment and appar- 
ently of appropriate feeling. 

Intermittent mania occurs with the same regu- 
larity and is cured by the same treatment as 
ague. 

It is stated as a fact that the miasmata of the 
Niger, so fatal to Europeans, stimulates the worst 
passions of the natives ; also that the north wind 
at Buenos Ay res spoils meat, milk and bread, 
and produces headache; and Jones, page 313, 
gives an account of an amiable gentleman who 
always quarreled with any one he met during 
the prevalence of that wind, and was finally exe- 
cuted for murder after twenty street fights with 
knives. The devoted Dr. Alexander of New 
Jersey, said : " It is merciless in Satan to assail 
me when the wind is east." When asked if he 
always enjoyed full assurance of faith, he an- 
swered, *' Yes, except when the east wind blows." 

Dn Burrows tells of an eminent divine who 
was always maniacal except when he had pains 
in his spine. These illustrations of mind-condi- 
tionating force (see pages 35 and 53) we have 
thrown together in order to show that thought 
products depend upon the condition of the mate- 
rial organ of thought, therefore when it is affected 



212 CHRISTIAN" HOLINESS. 

by disease or irritated by poisons in blood or atmos- 
phere its functional results may be correspondingly 
modified. Hence, it is vain to expect that the 
experience of Christian purity will so change the 
laws of our being that we shall be entitled to 
claim the entire control of our thoughts. 

Is there, then, any criteria by which we may 
distinguish thoughts that are born of such bodily 
conditions from those which are voluntary ? Dar- 
win " Zoonomia, vol. 1, p. 184 says the latter " are 
always employed about the means to acquire 
pleasurable objects or to avoid painfu] ones ; while 
the former are employed about the possession of 
those that are already in our power," i, e, volun- 
tary thoughts are characterized by judgment, 
while those which spring from sensations (con- 
scious or unconscious, either,) are marked by 
their paramount impulsiveness. Strange if this 
noted scientist has unvattingly furnished a key to 
a very large and important class of embarrass- 
ments in Christian life ! Yet, with sufficient ex- 
planations, we think that he has made a sugges- 
tion of great value. Using his word. ^' acquire," 
in the sense of perpetuity of present "pleasurable 
objects," as well as in the sense of securing others : 
and giving to his word "avoid" the sense of rid- 
dance of present "painful objects," as well as elud- 
ing others not present ; — and understanding his 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 213 

word "sensations'' to be used as synonymous with 
Fenehtersleben's "innate sensation/' {Med. Fsy- 
chology, 1874, p. 83,) that which "is necessary to 
the existence of all other particular sensations, 
and that may exist independently of the nervous 
system ;" — we may accept the statement as prac- 
tically applicable to the purpose of Christian cul- 
ture. Some maxims based upon this distinction, 
may put the subject in a clearer light, viz., 

First. In all mental depressions, and impulsive 
wandering of thoughts a physical cause should be 
suspected when no moral cause can be detected. 

Second. When the mental impressions are in 
opposition to conscience and the law of our affec- 
tions, and when argument and will have no com- 
manding effect, it is tolerably certain that the 
cause is physical. 

Third. When prayer conjoined with will and 
effort, produce only a very transient exemption, 
or none at all, the physical origin of the difficulty 
is beyond a doubt. The remedy then is — to get 
cured if possible, or, in the absence of such pos- 
sibility, to bear the depression, or the wandering 
thoughts as any other affliction would be borne — 
as a part of life's discipline, to be sanctified through 
our patience and trust, to our good, "You will 
never cure them" (wandering thoughts) "by set 
reflections; . . . be simply content to yield your 



214 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

will to God without reservation, and when any- 
state of suffering is brought before you, accept it 
as his will, in an absolute abandonment to his 
guidance/' Yenelon ^^ Christian Counsel 

(5) The experience of Christian Holiness is 
not an undisturbed calm. 

Peace may "flow as a river," but even the 
river has its waves breaking backward as it meets 
the upward rush of the sea, or feels the pressure 
of the wind against its flow. So, the really calm 
heart may be surface-tossed while the great roll 
of its tide is toward God. 

(6) Neither does this experience imply an 
absence of painful and unreasonable emotions. 
If the reader has noted carefully what was said 
about our inability to control our thoughts, he 
will be prepared to accept this statement, viz,, 
Our emotional natures are so under the dominion 
of our physical states and of circumstances, that 
they are often impressed, even contrary to our 
will and efforts. 

How many sincere Christians have at times 
felt to an altogether unreasonable extent the 
heart-yearnings of home-sickness? One of the 
most devoted women whom we have met, narrated 
to us her own experience when her youngest 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 215 

daughter went to a distant place to school. Her 
feelings were those of one bereaved of her child. 
Her appetite failed ; a terrible gloom settled up- 
on her spirits ; and notwithstanding her utmost 
efforts to be cheerful for the sake of her remain- 
ing daughters and for the honor of her religion, 
she was utterly absorbed in a sad sense of loss that 
nothing could mitigate. She is one of the most 
cheerful of women, and the clearness of her views 
and experience of Christian holiness is rarely 
equalled ; yet for days she continued in this mood 
which was at last dispelled as suddenly as it ap- 
peared, but neither in its coming or stay, had it 
stained the purity of her spirit. 

The writer is acquainted with a Christian lady 
sixty- one years of age, in sufficient health to care 
for her family vmaided, who, all her life, has been 
subject to uncontrollable nervousness, especially 
during thunder showers. From the first rum- 
bling of the thunder until it is all over, she is 
faint, pallid, and can do nothing but walk the 
floor or sit and wring her numb and bloodless 
hands. Yet she has no fear of the lightning, 
and no fear of death. It is to her an unaccount- 
able peculiarity. Yet her mother who died at 
ninety-two was similarly affected. Our own 
theory is that the grandmother, gave the lunatic 
nerves to the mother through some terrible fright 



216 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

connected with thunder by the law of impres- 
sional heredity (see pp. 110-114), and thus the 
daughter and granddaughter have suffered. 

This lady is a devoted Christian earnestly 
yearning and striving — habitually — for sanctify- 
ing grace. Yet, all through her religious life 
she has been occasionally doing things (seem- 
ingly whimsical, prejudiced or even resentful) 
that have subjected her to severe criticism for 
want of consistency. As she once phrased it in 
class meeting, she has " been the victim of circum- 
stances." We have no desire to apologize for in- 
consistency, but we cannot forget that those thun- 
der-shower nerves are her work-day nerves; more, 
that they are the machinery and the only ma- 
chinery by which her really loving Christian 
spirit is geared to physical life. May it not be, 
therefore, that the " inconsistencies '' complained 
of belong to the same class of spinal reactions, 
pp. 45-46, or nerve-lunacy, as that other incon- 
sistency — namely — a Christian woman walking 
the floor and wringing her hands in a thunder- 
storm as if she had no Father above and no 
heaven to go to ! Since the above was written, 
this lady has a very clear and definite experience 
of heart- cleansing, yet her nerves remain the 
same and unreasonable emotion still sometimes 
holds sway. 



\ 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 217 

" Oh, Lord, take my heart, for I cannot give 
it, and when thou hast it, O keep it, for I cannot 
keep it for thee, and save me in spite of myself, 
for Jesus Christ's sake " — was the prayer of one 
who evidently failed to make the discrimination 
here insisted upon. If the reader will return to 
page 52 he will find the physiological reason 
for the preceding statements in what is there 
called the " organic element " of emotion. 

(7.) From what has already been said it fol- 
lows that — entire freedom from peevish tempers 
is not to be looked for. Mr. Youatt relates his 
experience with a horse in rabies thus — " He 
would bend his gaze upon me as if he would 
search me through and through and would 
prevail on me, if I could, to relieve him from 
some dreadful evil by which he was threatened. 
He would then press his head against my bosom 
and keep it there for a minute or more.'' " Yet 
in the paroxysms this touching desire for sym- 
pathy . . . would change almost instantaneously 
into the most maddened fury, or else the most 
singular treachery. . . . Not a motion is made 
by the bystanders of which the rabid horse is not 
conscious, nor does a person approach him whom 
he does not recognize ; but he labors under one 
all-absorbing feeling— an intense longing to de- 



218 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

vastate and destroy. His natural disposition is 
overborne by the power of the disease." 

It is well known that in cases of tumor in 
adults, and disease of the hip-joint in children, 
distressing dreams are the mental result, while, 
in even the healthy, the irritability that follows 
a night of dissipation is matter of common re- 
mark. Chronic dyspepsia, or habitual exhaustion 
of the nervous energies by excessive labor, or the 
use of narcotics have the same effect. 

But what bearing can these facts have upon 
our subject ? This : If the disposition of a horse 
can be changed by disease, if tumors and in- 
flamed joints can beget bad dreams, if dyspepsia 
and riotous excess can cause irritability, then the 
sanctified mother whose unremitting toils through 
the day, followed by a night or nights of wake- 
fulness, watching, and anxiety, and all this per- 
haps amid the indescribable life-drain of a healthy 
infant tugging at the breast of a weakly mother, 
surely all this may induce a physical condition 
of which irritability is as truly symptomatic as 
headache is of a foul stomach. 

There is an essential difference between a nerv- 
ous function and muscular power. By frequent 
exercise the muscular system increases in strength 
and decreases in irritability ; but the nerve force, 



ITte PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 219 

by repeated calls upon it, increases in irritability, 
and decreases in strength. 

Says Dr. Maudsley, ''Physiology and Pathology 
of 3£ind/' p. 83 : '' No culture of the mind, how- 
ever careful, no effort of the will, however strong, 
will avail to prevent irregular and convulsive ac- 
tion when a certain degree of instability of nerv- 
ous element has, from one cause or another, been 
produced in the spinal cells. It would be equally 
absurd to preach control to the spasms of chorea, 
or restraint to the convulsions of epilepsy, or to 
preach moderation to the east wind, or gentleness 
to the hurricane. That which in such case has 
its foundation in a definite physical cause must 
have its cure in the production of a definite physi- 
cal change." 

In genuine sanctification these temporary aber- 
ations of disposition or emotions are marked by 
no endorsement of the will, and usually by some 
discoverable abnormal condition of the body, or 
by some known derangement of the nerves. 

(8.) A state of holiness does not denote the ab- 
sence of sense-deceptions. 

That very great acuteness is imparted to the 
senses sometimes in certain conditions has been 
observed by all physicians. 

W. Derham, " Physico- Theology,^' p. 304, gives 



220 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

some instances, one of which was that of a gen- 
tleman whose eyes were diseased, and the sense of 
sight became so keen that he could distinguish 
colors in the dark. It would not be strange, 
therefore, if sense deceptions were sometimes the 
consequence of disease. As a matter of fact, 
surgeons well know that injuries to the brain 
frequently cause false reports of the senses. What 
Sir John Herschel calls " Visual images in dark- 
ness," (see " Lectures on Scientific Subjects,'') is 
still more to our purpose, for they " are waking 
impressions, in perfect health, and under no sort of 
excitement, — geometrical forms, landscapes, hu- 
man faces, etc., appearing to him in the darkness. 
The writer is frequently subject to the same 
class of impressions. Sometimes no sooner are 
our eyes closed in perfect darkness than the most 
strange, grotesque, and amusing images will ap- 
pear fully formed and most perfect in distinct- 
ness, and instantly vanish, to be followed by others 
so totally dissimilar as to have no other relation 
than that of mere succession. We often laugh 
outright at the comical display. At other times 
the images are grave, or beautiful, but always 
complete and instantly gone. In our own case 
they almost always occur after a period of intense 
thought. But they have nothing whatever to do 
with holiness of heart. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 221 

(9.) The complete extinguishment of morbid 
appetites is not necessarily implied in heart- 
purity. There is a disease called Bulimia, in 
which " the patient is affected with an inordinate 
appetite, which nothing can satiate, and which 
his will seems powerless to resist." " Philosophi- 
cal Transactions,^^ vol. 22, gives an account of a 
man who would eat an ordinary leg of veal be- 
sides thistles and other wild vegetables, at a sin- 
gle meal. 

Another would eat raw rats, eats, and dogs, 
and candles to the extent of fourteen pounds 
daily. {^London Med, and Physical Journal?) 

"We have known two cases, one of which would 
disgust the reader to recite, and the other is strik- 
ingly illustrative of our proposition, because he 
was a man of genuine piety, and otherwise spot- 
less character. Yet he would steal in the night 
to his employer's larder — after eating as much 
during the day as two or three ordinary men — 
and devour several links of raw sausage at a time. 
A sanctified soul may have a body sufficiently 
under the power of disease to exhibit some mor- 
bid appetite. Dr. Van de Warker, '' Popular 
Science Monthly, No. 39, says : " In those cases — 
and they are not rare — in which the organic ap- 
petites affect unduly and too persistently the con- 
sciousness, it becomes the source of great unhap- 



222 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

piness, or of bad health." Early wrong habits, 
or a baneful heritage of evil, has stamped upon 
the whole nervous organism an abnormal sensi- 
bility to organic processes that becomes a blight 
of hopelessness as to the attainment of the serene 
state of rest supposed to pertain to a life of holi- 
ness. Let no victim of this unfortunate condition 
confound an experience of purity with exemption 
from disease or its consequences. 

(10.) It is not implied in heart-purity that 
there shall be complete control of nervous agita- 
tions. 

" Nervous health is one thing, and moral health 
is another. We suspect that what is good for the 
one is often bad for the other." " London Specta- 
torr 

Every organ in the body is endowed with the 
property of irritability, i, e., re-acting in some pe- 
culiar manner to the action of a direct stimulus. 
Thus the glands show their re-action by increased 
secretions ; the capillary vessels by congestion ; 
the muscles by contraction, and the nerves by 
sensations or movements. 

Enough has already been said to show that in 
an unhealthy condition of nerves, corresponding 
pains or agitations are the natural result, and 
this result is no index to the state of the heart. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 223 

(11.) Sanctification does not suppose an entire 
absence of spasmodic muscular movements. 

Dr. Laycock has shown that " involuntary mus- 
cular movements take place in respondence not 
merely to sensations, but to ideas ; and not mere- 
ly at the prompting of ideas actually before the 
mind, but through the action of the substrata left 
by past mental operations. Thus, for example 
the convulsive paroxysm of hydrophobia may be 
excited not merely by the sight and sound of 
water, but by the idea of water suggested either 
by a picture or by the verbal mention of it." Lon- 
don Quarterly Review, Oct. 1871. See also pp 45, 
and 46 of this work. 

There is a singular disease — St. Vitus Dance — 
insanity of the muscles — indicating an unhealthy 
state of the co-ordinating power, (see page 48,) 
which may co-exist with the purest moral char- 
acter. The reflex power of nerve-centers has 
been explained upon page 41 and all that now 
needs to be added is to remind the reader that 
sanctification is . a moral state within the realm of 
physical laws. 

What then is involved in the experience of 
Christian Holiness ? 

Answer : We are not to attempt the imprac- 
ticable. E. g.. If certain nervous disorders or 
hereditary conditions afHict us, we are to accept 



224 CHiUSTIAN HOLINESS. 

the facts as they are and suit our efforts to the 
possibilities of the case, (see pp 126-128;, and not 
endeavor to fit one garment of purity to all dis- 
torted forms. We should ascertain surely what 
is vulnerable and what is invulnerable and not 
waste our power in vain. 

How shall we discriminate ? " When organic 
processes which ordinarily go on without conscious- 
ness force themselves into consciousness (by a 
sense of weariness, heaviness, pain, etc.,) it is the 
certain mark of a vital degeneration." Maudsley, 
In all such cases an unsatisfactory experience 
should be sifted thoroughly for mental effects of dis- 
ease. Then the maxims laid down on pp. 213-214, 
by which to distinguish voluntary from involun- 
tary thoughts should be applied, and it may be 
confidently assumed that an intelligent course of 
investigation like this will soon settle the question. 

2. Rightly distribute the work to be done. 
That work is — Believing and doing. Believing 
for anything needed provided there is a clear 
promise or a valid inference justifying the faith, 
and working in all practicable spheres when faith 
cannot preserve us with a spotless conscience, and 
glorify God as he requires. 

But care must be exercised to keep each in its 
place. Faith must not arrogate to herself all the 
virtue of christian character, and Works — be- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 225 

cause more tangible — must not assume to be the 
entil*e substance of Christian life. 

So, Believing and Working belong to man ; 
Saving and Co-working pertain to God. The 
spheres may intermingle in a thousand directions 
but every separate thread of responsibility holds 
its continuity with its Divine or human source, 
and while to the observer all may seem an inex- 
tricable tangle of inexplicable questions, to the 
all-piercing eye of Moral obligation the distribu- 
tion is as accurate as fact, and as important as 
destiny, and with the Divine Promise especially 
applicable just here, ''He shall lead you into all 
truth," no humble child of His need ever to de- 
spair of being able rightly to distribute the work 
to be done. 

3. Do your part faithfully. With fidelity, be- 
cause a lack of fidelity is to that extent treachery 
to the high interests committed to your trust. 
No Christian seeking purity of life as a fitting 
complement of purity of spirit, can harbor treach- 
ery without an instantaneous surrender of his 
professed object. 

Do that part now, because this moment only is 
your own : and even it flies as you gaze upon it 
• — not to be lost only, but to stamp the coming 
moment with its own character. 

The future can be provided for only by taking 



226 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

care of the present. Every fleeting instant leaves 
a mold into which the plastic succeeding instant 
runs and takes its form. Let Fidelity cast these 
molds of the coming seconds, and they are stamp- 
ed for God as they come, and they weave around 
the Christian heart a golden coat-of-mail every 
separate link of which has been forged in holy 
fires and tempered with heavenly skill. Duties 
made habit, is a complete reversal of the pre-in- 
clinations of the heart. Especially is this true 
of fidelity to privilege in the baptism of the Holy 
Spirit. No Christian can afford to live without 
the wonder-working hand of the Holy Ghost 
upon him frequently, giving to these transfigura- 
tion hours a surpassing sweetness and a match- 
less power to permeate, exalt and spiritualize 
many after-days. 

4. Trust God to do his part instantly. The 
point so strongly insisted upon in elaborating the 
elements of sanctifying faith (page 187) must be 
adverted to just here, and its importance empha- 
sized as applying to the whole course of sanctified 
life. God's co- working will be found to be just 
as much dependent upon your assumption of his 
trustworthiness in your Christian activities, as his 
sanctifying grace was in the glorious hour of your 
heart-cleansing. Hence, an expectation of his in- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 227 

stantaneous co-operation should be the habitual 
state of mind in which duty should be performed. 

3, Admonitory of the dangers, 

1. A very general one is : Dallying with temp- 
tation. Not that it is peculiar to a life of entire 
devotedness ; on the contrary, when recognized, it 
is excluded from such a life, but the danger is 
that the temptation will appear in some form so 
disguised that it will seem to be a legitimately 
debatable question, and thus hold the mind to its 
consideration until it has awakened a desire in the 
same direction. The true policy is to bring all 
such things immediately to the test of the Word 
and the Spirit's guidance, pleading the promise, 
" If any among you lack wisdom," etc., and giv- 
ing the benefit of the doubt, if there be such, to 
self-denial and purity rather than to indulgence. 
Dr. McCabe, " Light on the Pathway of Holiness,'' 
p. 80, shows that the temptations of the sanctified 
are usually to " an excessive action or indulgence 
of sensibilities in themselves innocent and proper.'* 
And page 46 of this treatise points to a large and 
powerful class of temptations that may arise from 
physical causes. Rev. J. D. Tettey in *' Seriptur- 
al Holiness, (London,) has an admirable chapter 
clearly stating the distinction often made between a 
tempting object as recognized by the perceptions, 



228 CHRISTIAN HOLIisESS. 

as felt by the sensibilities, and as consented to by 
the will, and correctly insists that prior to the 
consent of the ivillj there is no sin. Yet the con- 
sent of the will may be to simple dalliance but 
not indulgence — a position of great danger to, if 
not positive destruction of, heart-purity. 

2. Another danger is that of Resting in partial 
success. A glorious victory has been achieved, 
and substantial conquest gained, but consolidation 
in the new condition of things must be experi- 
enced. The old habits have been eradicated, but 
the new need to be confirmed. Hence progress is 
imperative. No pause for self-gratulation can be 
allowed. The new recruits of thoughts and feel- 
ings must be thoroughly drilled to hold as well 
as occupy their new possession, but hold it only 
as vantage ground for movements still further in 
advance. The campaign is organized upon the 
plan of no retrogression. " Conquer, hold, for- 
ward," is the standing order of the chief. No par- 
tial success, however glorious, can be obedience. 
On, 071 to the full consummation ! That, and 
that alone is Sanctified Life. The assumption of 
final victory without unremitting efibrt is a delu- 
sion and a snare. 

3. Another danger is the disposition to suppress 
distinct and positive testimony. " With the heart 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 229 

man believeth unto righteousness, and with the 
mouth confession is made unto salvation," is a 
principle that applies to the whole course of Chris- 
tian discipleship. Nor can any personal views 
of demerit, or real humility of spirit avail to ex- 
cuse even the lowliest from the duty of rendering 
unto God the first fruits of praise in the presence 
of his people after each harvesting of grace. Not 
that the statements should be made indiscrim- 
inately ; on the contrary, always with a wise ref- 
erence to circumstances as indices of God's will. 
But at proper times the testimony should be clear, 
explicit, and with humble reliance upon Him to 
" establish" the " word in the mouth of two or 
three witnesses." 

As to the value of such testimony, Rev. Dr. 
Major, '^ Christian Perfection,'' pp. 87-92, has sum- 
marized in a most conclusive form all that need 
to be said upon that point. 

4. The habitual repression of the emotions is 
another danger, of special magnitude in these 
days of prim propriety and conventional usurpa- 
tion in Christian devotion. 

" When the soDsorium is strongly excited, 
nerve-force is generated in great excess." Darwin. 

That the sensorium (pp. 47-48) should be thus 
excited is but a natural result of the condition of 
the earnest Christian amid the play of the might- 



230 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

iest forces that ever visit the heart of man. The 
stupendous claims of God, the comprehensive de- 
votement of self, the melting appeals of Infinite 
Love, the majestic mandates of all obligation, the 
supreme importance of eternal interests, the au- 
dacious insolence of satanio interference, the out- 
rageous perversions of carnal self-life — all these 
crowding the arena of thought and impulse and 
emotion, in one brief hour of service — surely if 
the sensorium have any sensibility its most lethar- 
gic cells will thrill with activity now, and that ac- 
tivity " will generate nerve-force in great excess,'' 
^. 6., in excess of the ordinary measure. The 
nerve-force thus generated must go somewhere and 
do something. 

It may expend itself in mere emotion, or it may 
arouse the emotions only that they may be the 
stimulus to corresponding actions, or it may stir 
the emotions, and then be reflected in the action 
of the hemispheres as repressive volition forcing 
the emotions into hasty submission. " Emotion, 
unless directed in proper channels is highly de- 
structive to the stability of the nervous centers.^' 
When, therefore, the nerve-force awakens emo- 
tions which expend themselves in their own exer- 
cise, it is a " highly destructive" process. When 
the nerve force arouses first the emotions and 
then the will to quell the ebulitions it is no less a 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 231 

" highly destructive " process, because the emo- 
tions are not " directed/' but repressed. 

Therefore, the physiological, the psychological, 
the Christian use of such emotions is to direct 
them in channels which their own instincts select. 
If those emotions be kindled in private devotion 
and take the form of thanks-giving, let the voice 
of thanks-giving — Praise — be the natural, and 
none the less saintly, product. If they be aroused 
in public worship, and the sympathies melt at the 
condition of the unsaved, let those sympathies 
find their appropriate expression in sympathetic 
words of warning or invitation, or deeds of win- 
ning influence and power. But beware of the 
suggestion that this work should be transferred 
to other hands. 

It is your nerve-force that is generated in ex- 
cess, and that cannot be transferred to another ! 
Neither can it be wrongly used without a direct 
spiritual as w^ell as physical injury. 

This treatise will have been in vain as far as 
you are concerned, if you have not already been 
convinced that the realms of the physical and 
the spiritual interpenetrate each other to such an 
extent that no great law of either can be violated 
without the other receiving an injury of corres- 
ponding magnitude. But if any should fail tq 



232 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

comprehend the importance of this view, we call 
to their attention the fact that emotions habitually 
repressed at last lose their power. Here is a men- 
tal law that cannot be ignored. Spiritual emo- 
tions have their place, and a most important one 
it is, in the economy of individual salvation. To 
repress them, therefore, habitually, is to revolu- 
tionize God's plan of saving us, and to substitute 
a device of our own. But God will not yield the 
sceptre ; hence Barrenness and Powerlessness sit 
as twin daughters of Folly watching the warring 
zeal of multitudes w^ho *' did run well for a sea- 
son,'* but who made the wretched mistake of 
supposing that they could " do God service " by 
stamping upon the flaming brands which his own 
truth and spirit kindled, in obedience to the be- 
hests of timid worldly conservatism. 

5. Beware of seeking a quiescent peace. Pos- 
sibly there may be a few — a very few peculiarly 
constituted ones, who are called to a contempla- 
tive, intro-spective, self-gratulatory quiescence, 
while the great world storms around, and the 
mass of believers feel constrained to seize the 
ropes, and work the pumps and man the guns in 
something more than a waking dream-life of 
pleasant trust. 

This is a work-day world, and he who gives 
his heart to God in utter self-abandonment con- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 233 

sents thereby to be thrown bodily right into the 
thick of whatever activity can be most and best 
affected by his presence and exertions. Let the 
sick rest. Let the stupid dream. Let the vis- 
ionary mount their chariots of moonbeams and 
soar whither they will, but as for us, let us re- 
member that the day is for work. 

6. In steering clear of the quicksand of quies- 
cence, be careful to avoid the rock of fanaticism. 

Holiness is supremely a one idea theme. And 
one ideaists are in peculiar danger of extremes. 
Hence it is that the good cause is so fearfully 
weighted with so many really good but run-to- 
seed Christians, and so many constitutional hob- 
byists to whom a one idea truth of real magni- 
tude is a Mecca of life-long aspiration. Its sober 
and balanced advocates must needs suffer some- 
what from this unavoidable condition of things, 
but should be all the more on their guard not to 
add to the difficulties by their own indiscretions. 
It were well for all to read carefully Mr. Wes- 
ley's caution against *' enthusiasm '' in his " Plain 
Account of Christian Perfection,^' pp. 135-139. 

7. Canting pietism should be carefully avoided. 
Conviction may be spoken, testimony may be 
given, exhortations may be uttered, and prayers 
may be offered brim full of the very marrow of 
clear, distinct, and conscious salvation without 



234 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

once trenching upon the shriveled and repulsive 
domain of Cant. Set phrases, in affected style 
and whining tones is bad enough anywhere, but 
in advocacy of the greatest boon of God to men 
it is ridiculous, and but for the good intentions 
involved would be detestable. " Let your yea 
be yea, and your nay be nay," and leave the 
mouthings of stereotyped affectation to those who 
have no better capital. 

Say Dr. D. Curry, " Perfect Love;' p. 42 : "A 
special dialect should be avoided as far as possi- 
ble. ... It is the easiest thing in the world to 
fall into the use of words without definite mean- 
ing. This evil is greatly intensified when it is 
accompanied by a mannerism of tones, and 
methods of utterance, and unmeaning and un- 
necessary peculiarities." 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SUBJECT PRACTICALLY APPLIED. 

"l,^ To the private Christian, 

1. As an experience personally needed. 

Whether we consider the almost universal lack 

of power to master the evil tendencies within, and 

to pass unharmed through those without ; or the 

co-extensive service-life of hard duties and un- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 235 

welcome crosses, smothering the feeble joy that 
struggles for existence, and putting far off the 
exultant victory that should crown Christian 
sonship with perpetual triumph ; the need is too 
apparent for argument. 

We appeal, therefore, to the consciousness of 
the reader, and calling to remembrance the glor- 
ious aspirations of the past — holding him face to 
face with the spirit-kindled yearnings with- 
in, and pointing to the promises all-glorious with 
the purity which they pledge, for assurance ; to 
the experiences all-lustrous in the moral beauty 
which they illustrate, for encouragement ; to the 
baptisms of power, surcharged with overmaster- 
ing might of God, for reliance ;* to the outmost 
reaching, deep-most cleansing blood of Jesus, for 
the all- perfect washing — we cry, " My God shall 
supply all your need, according to his riches in 
glory by Christ Jesus." Wondrous supply— the 
supply of God. Wondrous measure — triplicate 
as his own nature ! 



■^Baptisms of the Holy Ghost are defined by Eev. 
Henry Belden thus : " Refreshings, quickenings, spirit- 
ual holy impulses given at any stage of the Christian 
life." Eev. B. W. Gorham— ''God's ^ Method with Men,'' 
p. 235— adds : " With each successive coming of the 
Spirit there is always an experience which places the 
soul in a new position beyond what it had reached be- 
fore." 



236 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

" According to his glory." As wide as his 
own omnipresence ! As enduring as his own 
eternity ! ! Earth-time is but a speck upon the 
infinite expanse. Yet, we in time — filling not the 
billionth part of that speck even — what can we 
compxehend of that illimitable glory ? 

But that is only the initial step in the measure- 
ment. " According to his glory by Christ Je- 
sus." All the boundless sea of his immeasurable 
and interminable glory made phosphorescent in 
the glow of the character and work of Jesus 
Christ, as the long-sufiTeringness of Love stands 
unveiled before all intelligences, and things 
" which the angels desired to look into" are re- 
vealed. 

Beyond all this — " according to the riches of 
his glory by Christ Jesus." Wealth of worth in- 
calculable! Wealth of praise how sumless! 
Wealth of delight how inefiable ! 

In view of such a measure, well may God de- 
clare : " For as the heavens are higher than the 
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and 
my thoughts than your thoughts." How much 
this means let him illustrate in hearts emptied 
and trusting in his hands, in the attitude express- 
ed by Frances Ridley Havergal in her personal 
covenant of July 1876 : 

"Now Lord I give mvself to thee, 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 237 

I would be wholly thine ; 
As thou hast given thyself to me, 

And thou art wholly mine ; 
O take me, seal me as thine own, 

Thine altogether — thine alone." 

2. As an experience certainly attainable. 

It were useless to quote scripture passages in 
confirmation of this assertion, for they must 
necessarily be interpreted, and it is well known 
that some schools of theology find it easy to give 
to any that might be cited, a signification entire- 
ly different from our own. But there is a kind 
of evidence that cannot be explained away with- 
out utterly destroying the credibility of all testi- 
mony. The oral and printed statements of the 
number who profess to know this as a fact of ex- 
perience, constitutes a mass of evidence which no 
sane man who carefully considers, can innocent- 
ly gainsay. The witnesses are from all ranks 
of society, of all grades of culture, of all degrees 
of refinement, of all adult years, of all shades of 
temperament, of all varieties of previous Christian 
character. And their statements are concerning 
facts of consciousnes, lying within its legitimate do- 
mains which are corroberated by marked contem- 
porary changes of deportment, and subsequent 
adherence to their views, and consistency of life 
with them, which together furnishes proof as con- 



238 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

elusive as anything human can be. If, however, 
the analytic mind needs or desires further confir- 
mation, it is found in the philosophy of the sub- 
ject as presented in this volume, for no error can 
be wrought 'into a consistent and harmonious 
philosophical system. 

Now let us trace an experience through its sev- 
eral phases. 

Suppose a penitent at God's altar to be mould- 
ed as He pleases. The consecration has been 
complete, and now the soul is passive in the hands 
of a God who hates sin with all the loathing of 
his infinite nature, and loves holiness with a cor- 
responding intensity. The will of the penitent 
is not merely acquiescent but concurrent in any 
process that may be needful for his salvation. 
He is believing. He is saved. 

A few days pass away and he feels nothing 
wrong within. But suddenly, in a moment of 
temptation, anger arises, or covetousness grasps, 
or profanity struggles for expression. He is as- 
tounded, overwhelmed, almost in despair. 

He is told that he now " needs the second bless- 
ing." What is implied in this, he has little con- 
ception of; but he seeks earnestly for deliver- 
ance, and is greatly blessed. He feels these be- 
setments no more, and is told that he is cleansed 
from sin. A few months pass away, and al- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 239 

though anger, covetousness and profanity are all 
destroyed, pride begins to inflate, and again he is 
bewildered. He is told that he has lost his hold ; 
that he must seek the second blessing over again. 
He tries again, and receives another baptism of 
the Spirit, and pride is expelled. Time passes, 
and although he cannot doubt the victories that 
he has achieved, now ambition begins to urge, 
and again the poor man is in trouble. Twice 
already he has thought himself cleansed from all 
the " roots of bitterness ;" and lo ! ambition dwells 
within! Still, he thinks that somehow — he 
scarcely knows how-— he must have been unfaith- 
ful, and again he seeks the cleansing blood, and 
is saved. 

Those workings of the " carnal nature " that 
he first felt after his conversion were the prepon- 
derating habits of his soul, which filled all the 
foreground of his consciousness, so that his atten- 
tion was completely absorbed by them, and his 
first cleansing was simply the sanctification of 
those habits. But when they were revolution- 
ized, pride, which had been lurking back unob- 
served because of the prominence of the others, 
appeared in view ; and the second cleansing was 
the sanctification of that habit. And then am- 
bition deployed its forces, and that was sanctified. 
And so the process might continue as long as acy 



240 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

uusanctified habit remained. And the work 
might proceed in any order that the necessities 
of the case might demand. 

But why does not God sanctify our habits in 
regeneration ? Because it would be a violation 
of the laws of our mental nature, amidst the sur- 
roundings of this life, to entirely sanctify the my 
in regeneration. 

In penitence the will is usually not sufficiently 
engaged with habits to secure their eradication. 
Sometimes, indeed, the soul may be partially 
sanctified in its habits in regeneration, in those 
cases where the sinful habit has been a special 
burden, and is an object of loathing, but even 
then no further than the ivill voluntarily and def- 
initely allies itself with grace for this particular 
purpose. Precisely the same truth applies to 
those cases of partial sanctification which occur 
subsequent to conversion. Grace sanctifies just 
so far as, and no farther than, the will definitely 
concurs. On page 49 it is shown that the hemi- 
spheres of the brain are " the material instru- 
ments through which the immaterial spirit oper- 
ates," and on page 50, that the will " seems to stand 
to the hemispheres in the place of a higher nerv- 
ous center.'^ Therefore, a physical and psycho- 
logical - cAarin 6^ is made for sanctifying grace in 
the alliance of the will of the subject with the 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 241 

Holy Spirit. Perhaps the fact stated on page 51, 
that " the idea that a structural defect will cer- 
tainly be removed by a particular act does some- 
times so affect the organic action of the part as 
to produce a cure," may be taken as an illustra- 
tion. 

Suppose here is an individual with an inveter- 
ate blood disease that has been forming a pain- 
ful tumor, and has also induced a craving for 
some noxious drug, which has been indulged in 
till the habit is fully formed, and its use reacts 
and aggravates the disease. Let the disease stand 
for the sinfulness of the nature, the tumor for 
out-breaking sin, the craving for the appetite, 
and the indulgence for the habit. Now, suppose 
a physician proposes to cure the patient by dis- 
secting out the tumor (repentance), and purifi- 
cation of the blood by alteratives (regeneration), 
as a natural result the craving which sprang 
from the disease will cease. All this is done ; 
yet shortly after the operation the patient com- 
plains that the physician has not done his work 
thoroughly, because he feels his old desire for the 
drug, which he thinks is incompatible with a 
pure state of the blood. The physician replies : 
The tumor is removed ; your blood is perfectly 
pure, and what you feel is only the old habit of 
indulgence. The craving does not now arise 



242 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS, 

from the state of your blood, but from the fact 
that you have been addicted to the use of the 
drug. That is a law of mind which must be met 
by will 'power. Physic cannot remove it, but 
you can will it out I If you will undertake it, I 
may assist you by some gentle stimulants that 
will tend to form new appetites ; but there must 
be absolute cessation of indulgence, and stern 
and persistent effort on your part. 

Now the question might arise : Is the patient 
under any obligation to attempt his part of the 
assigned task ? 

If, by the habit of indulgence, he injures 
health and usefulness, and thus fails in his duty 
to others, he is most certainly responsible for that 
failure. 

So, if by the continuance of old sinful habits 
we entail upon ourselves spiritual infirmity, 
and by that weakness fail in our duty to others ; 
and if, above all else, our voluntarily perpetu- 
ated habits defile the outgoings of the pure 
spirit which God has placed within us, and we 
thus dishonor his workmanship, condemnation 
must be our inevitable doom. The dilemma is 
not, Advance, or fail to reach a glorious priv- 
ilege ! but. Advance, or lose our justification. 

The work of sanctification now stands before 
us, not in the form of an intangible something to 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 243 

be acquired somehow, but as a plainly defined 
struggle and a consciously ascertained victory. 

Is the body subjected to any unhealthy and 
depraving appetite ? If so, it is vain for him to 
talk of being a " free man in Christ Jesus " until 
he emancipates himself from that humiliating 
thraldom. Oh, that all readers might be induced 
just here and now to bury the instruments of 
slavery of those old habits forever ! Oh, that 
the maUy the blood-redeemed raan, would rise in 
rebellion against the dominancy of appetite! 
Your tobacco, your wine, your lust, your glut- 
tony — lawful though they may be — righteous, 
sanctified they never can be as habits of indul- 
gence, and innocent they cannot be while defil- 
ing and shattering the temple of the Holy 
Ghost ! 

Is your mind the slave of anger, petulance, 
censoriousness, envy, pride, ambition, covetous- 
ness ? Here is your work. A mighty, desperate 
work it is ! You cannot take that sinful habit 
and lay it at your bidding. You may bid it 
down, but it will up and taunt you with your 
weakness ! You know that this is so. We do 
but tear a leaf from your own experience and 
read it to you now. 

" What, then, shall I do ? " Is this your cry ? 
Wait a little. 



244 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Perhaps these depravities are hereditary, in- 
born, but strengthened by indulgence. So much 
the deeper is their hold ! So much the firmer 
are you bound ! 

But habits can be eradicated in two ways: 
(1) By voluntar}^, gradual obliterartion and sub- 
stitution. You cannot will them away, but you 
can will them down, and substitute them out I By 
substitution only comes deliverance. 

If the habit be physical, the substitutionary 
process need not be another indulgence less ob- 
jectionable, but simply the healthful action of the 
organs implicated. If it be mental or spiritual, 
the energy that has flowed in that direction must 
find other and sanctified outlets. 

This process of substitution is usually subject 
to two laws : 

a. That of Impression, which has special rela- 
tion to the habit first selected as the subject of 
experiment. E, g., If anger is the predominat- 
ing propensity, the impression of that fact is 
more clearly defined within the consciousness 
than any other, and therefore, when the work of 
transformation commences, it will seem to be 
mostly centered there. And, when acomplished 
there, the work may seem to be complete until 
the same law reveals some other depravity ; and 
so on until the last old sinful habit is extirpated ; 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 245 

then, and not till then, is the soul sanctified entirely I 
b. The law of Inspiration. All processes of 
human nature — physical, mental and spiritual- 
are quickened by inspiration. An aspiring 
thought will flash in the eye, tremble in the 
pulse, dance in the muscular movements, and 
chase away fatigue. Inspiration heightens the 
glow of Poesy, gives firmness to the tread of Rea- 
son, kindles tlie yearnings of Devotion, and stays 
the wanderings of Will. So the mighty work of 
sanctifying substitution quickens under the di- 
vinely kindled impulses of Inspiration. Hence, 
those means of grace that breathe the purest, 
strongest inspiration should be most relied upon 
in this warfare against depravity. 

But all this speaks of time, and toil, and con- 
flict. Aye, and of peril also ; for old habits have 
a reactionary power over spirit-purity, so that it 
is quite possible that you may contract guilt by 
unnecessary delay, and thus your substitutionary 
process be more than neutralized by acquired 
pollution. Is there not a better way ? Must we 
spend a lifetime in the sanctifying process, and 
be able to bring forth its glorious fruitage only 
in the sunset of our day ? Or, worse still, should 
our day end at its meridian, can we never, never 
show to the world what it is perishing to see — the 
sanctifying graces of the Holy Spirit adorning 



246 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

all our earthly life ? Yes ! Glory to the Lamb ! 
There is a shorter way ! Not, perhaps to gain all 
victories at once, but, at least, to find all peace 
within the range of present consciousness and ob- 
ligation. 

(2) Habits may be removed by revolutionary 
and supernatural substitution ! 

By this we mean that the Divine Spirit can, in 
a dngle moment ^ with the concurrence of your 
will and the appropriations of your faith, work a 
change in your habits that shall be equivalent to 
your own disciplined substitution. The Holy 
Spirit can dig new channels for your activities in 
an instant, so that you who are so passionate, and 
who, under ordinary operations of grace, would 
require months or years of conflict in which to 
completely change your temper, may have that 
temper sanctified, in the twinkling of an eye, by 
the revolutionary processes of the Holy Ghost. 

Rev. Dr. Asa Graham cites a case which illus- 
trates this truth. He was a man of much means, 
but who had been, up to the time of his conver- 
sion, an intense miser. Greedy covetousness had 
been the all-controlling indwelling sin of his life. 
After his conversion he felt bound to contribute 
liberally for the cause of Christ. Every gift con- 
ferred, however, wrung his heart with agony. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 247 

Parting with his money was like parting with his 
life-blood. One class of teachers would have told 
this man that the good fight of faith with him 
would consist in resisting and holding in subjec- 
tion such feelings, and in despite of the evil 
promptings, to give as God requires. Being 
taught by others " the way of the Lord more per- 
fectly,'' " he went and told Jesus" of his evil case, 
and asked him to take away wholly, not only this 
indwelling sin, but to " save him unto the utter- 
most." The result was " a renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." From that hour, " giving to the poor," 
and " dispersing abroad," became the luxury of 
his life. The joy of his heart was to give as the 
Lord had prospered him. 

Dr. Graham continues : The " easily besetting 
sin" of the celebrated theologian of America, Dr. 
Hopkins, was a very violent and easily excited 
temper. This propensity held despotic power 
over him, until after he had been for years in the 
ministry. On one occasion, he did great injury 
to his own peace and the cause of truth, under the 
influence of excited anger. The entire subsequent 
night he spent in prayer and humiliation, be- 
seeching God to utterly annihilate in him that 
evil temper. Quite thirty years after that mem- 
orable night, that man of God testified, that dur- 
ing all this period he had never in a single in- 



248 CHEISTIAX HOLINESS. 

stance, been conscious of the least stirring of an 
angry feeling or sentiment in his mind. 

Is this doubted ? Upon what ground ? Is the 
faith that has looked out of darkness, and aliena- 
tion, and guilt, and claimed Christ as a Savior, 
now incompetent to look from adoption, and 
childhood, and affinity, and claim Jesus as a sanc- 
tifier ? Is the spirit, whose mighty energies have 
quickened the spirit into life, insufficient now to 
purify its belongings ? Must the thousands upon 
thousands of God's saints, who in the past have 
thought themselves examples of this wondrous 
transformation, be classed with enthusiasts and 
self-deceivers ? No, no ! When we reflect upon 
these things, and consider the positive affirma- 
tions of those who testitied so explicitly upon this 
point, and then, more satisfactorily than all else, 
bring to mind our own experience of the revolu- 
tionary power of the Holy Spirit, we feel that 
" To doubt would be disloyalty ; to falter would 
be sin." And, therefore, w^e proclaim to you 
again, with redoubled emphasis, the glorious truth 
that what will cannot do alone, and will and sub- 
stitution can only do after long and painful strug- 
gles, the new - creating, soul -baptizing, habit- 
changing Spirit can do, with the concurrence of 
your will and faith, just here and now. Hear it, 
ye tempted ones ! Hear it, ye struggling ones ! 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 249 

Hear it, ye defeated ones ! The all-conquering 
Spirit waits ! 

But you must first consecrate yourself as fully, 
as formally, as irrevocably, as much in detail, as 
if you were making inventory to deed yourself 
away for gold. And the spirit, life and power of 
your consecration must consist in this : that your 
will freely and forever accepts God's will as its 
one, sole, changeless law ! Do you do it ? Now, 
the crowning of your consecration must be in 
here and now committing your faith-faculty, your 
power of believing, your present trust, to the 
Word of God, in present acceptance of his sanc- 
tifying grace. Is this done ? Then do not look 
in upon yourself to see what the effect is. That 
is going by sight, not by faith ! Hold on by 
faith ; and though you have no evidence of feel- 
ing still believe, and keep believing ; and while be- 
lieving, though Satan comes he shall find nothing 
in you. God's word is evidence enough for faith 

Some of you are sanctified in part. Some hab- 
its have been slain. Some are still alive. By the 
numbers of the dead you may compute the my 
already sanctified. By the presence of the living 
you may estimate the magnitude of the work be- 
fore you. Ah, how sadly your Achans have dis- 
comfited Israel ! We charge you, men of God, 
bring every one to the stoning-place ! Dare not, 



250 CHKISTIAN HOLI^^ESS. 

upon your peril, dare not to carry one along with 
you. It will be a blighting, withering curse to 
you ! Come, then, with your " wedge of gold and 
Babylonish garment!" Heaven help you now ! 
Jesus stands by ! The Mighty Helper aids ! The 
sanctifying Spirit breathes upon us ! Now, now, 
we die to sin ! We crucify self ! We bury old 
habits ! We live to God ! The blood cleanses ? 
Oar hearts rest ! We are saved — saved — saved 
in Him ! 

" 'T is done ; Thou do^st this moment save — 

With full salvation bless ; 
Redemption through Thy blood I have. 

And spotless love, and peace." 

3. As peculiarly affecting the marriage rela- 
tion. 

We omit all insistance upon the spirit which it 
imparts to domestic life as too obvious to need 
comment, and pass at once to the consideration 
of a branch of the subject rarely, if ever before, 
made prominent in the treatment of this great 
theme. We refer to the duty of sanctified par- 
ents to beget children better by nature than them- 
selves. 

Says I. Taylor, " Nat Hist of Enthusiasm,^' p. 
142: 

" On principles even of mathematical calcula- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCJS. 251 

tion, each individual of the human family may 
be demonstrated to hold in his hand the center 
lines of an interminable web-work, on which are 
sustained the fortunes of multitudes of his 
successors. These implicated consequences, if 
summed together, make up therefore a weight of 
human weal or woe that is reflected back with 
an incalculable momentum upon the lot of each." 

That some marriages doom children before 
they are born is grimly implied in the oft-quoted 
language of Dr. Holmes — ''There are people 
who think that every thing may be done, if the 
doer, be he educator or physician, be only called 
in season. No doubt — but in season would often 
be a hundred or two years before the child was 
born." ' 

Impressed with the importance of this view, 
Fernald says in " First Causes of Character,'' p. 
57 : " If clergymen would .... only occasionally, 
which they might with the utmost propriety, un- 
fold the laws of nature, which are the laws of 
God, in the spiritual and physical connections of 
human pairs, they might dispense with a large 
part of their theology ; for nature itself would 
become so practical, exact, and regular, that the 
God of nature would work through it without 
obstruction, and the Holy Spirit find an almost 
involuntary entrance." 



252 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

We quote this language, not endorsing it in all 
its strength, but as indicating a vast field of 
truth too much negle<jted. 

Henry C. Wright may not be regarded as high 
authority by the advocates of Christian Holiness 
generally, but a truth is a truth by whomsoever 
uttered, and such is his statement, namely : 

" What is organized into us, in our pre-natal 
state, is of more consequence to us, and more 
vital to our triumph over the temptations and ob- 
stacles that impede our progress toward perfec- 
tion and happiness, than what is educated into us 
after we are born." 

It is concerning the badly organized unfortu- 
nates that Leckey says, "There are men whose 
lives are ^pent in willing one thing and desiring 
the opposite." 

Dr. Bushnell wheels a whole battalion of 
trenchant words into the same line when he de- 
clares : " In our birth, we not only begin to 
breathe and circulate blood, but it is a question 
hugely significant, w^hose the blood may be. For 
in this we have whole rivers of predispositions, 
good or bad, set running in us — as much more 
powerful to shape our future than all tuitional 
and regulative influences that come after, as they 
are earlier in their beginning, deeper in their 
insertion, and more constant in their operation." 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 253 

This truth, which cannot be successfully con- 
troverted, leads to a most important inference, 
namely : That the largest possibilities of the im- 
provement of the race gather into the moment of 
conception and the period before birth, (See on 
"Heredity," pp. 109-114.) Just there focalize 
the elevating influences of education and regen- 
eration, and a good first birth may be secured to 
the child by the discipline and second birth of 
the parent. 

" It is the greatest part of our felicity to be 
well born." (Fernelius.) 

After the first birth, " the aim of Christian 
education has been to piously bring up children 
in sin instead of allowing them to vegetate in 
it," whereas it should be to begin with the gift of 
a good first birth, trusting God to coincidently 
impart the second birth, and then from this lofty 
vantage ground, train them in a piety corres- 
ponding with their capacities. Thus eventually 
a long line of godly ancestry might result, from 
which a religious temperament might naturally 
and constitutionally proceed. 

From this general survey let us return to indi- 
vidual responsibility. Every parent is project- 
ing more or less of himself within the coming 
generation, therefore the part thus transmitted 
should be his best and noblest. Hence he should 



254 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

hold no sentiment, indulge no passion, form no 
habit, that he would not have organized as a 
predisposition into the nature of his child. Not 
content with this negative virtue, he should re- 
member the wholesome words of Dr. Napheys 
on p. 218 of his " Transmission of Life : " 

" We cannot by any course of virtue beget a 
child free from evil tendencies, but we can give 
him much to combat them through the virtuous 
qualities of civilization. The animal nature of 
man cannot be modified. It is invariably trans- 
mitted. It is always the same in the barbarian 
and in the enlightened man. But moral and 
mental qualities can be added, which, although 
they can never crush out nor wholly obscure the 
animal nature, can improve upon iV^ And the 
extent of that possible improvement has already 
been sufBciently indicated. 

2. The subject applied to organized churches, 

1. As a formula of faith. 

How much more beautiful and consistent with 
the design of the church is a creed which recog- 
nizes the truth of this doctrine, than one that de- 
nies it ; and how much more it glorifies the grace 
of God, and inspires men with hope, may be seen 
by two contrasted formulated statements. 

(1) CREED OF LIMITED SALVATION. 

I believe that after regeneration there still re- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 255 

main " roots of bitterness " — remnants of the 
'* carnal nature, " which do and will all through 
life break out in actual sins, so that Christians 
are in continual need of the justifying grace of 
God, and cannot expect to be entirely saved from 
sin until the hour of death. 

(2) CREED OF HOLINESS. 

I believe that after regeneration there still re- 
main " roots of bitterness '' — remnants of the 
" carnal nature" — which are so liable to break out 
under the stimulus of satanic influences, (see pp. 
73-74,) into actual sin, that Christians are in- 
vited to obtain the sanctifying grace of God, and 
be thenceforth preserved " blameless unto the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Now, as a test of the relative correspondence 
of these creeds with the spontaneous instincts and 
the cultured aspirations of Christian hearts, let 
them be read in turn to one just exulting in the 
new-born joy of his conversion, and likewise to a 
mature disciple, faithful and zealous, and thirst- 
ing with unutterable desire to be conformed to the 
mind of Christ ; and it needs no ken of prophecy 
to foresee which will best accord with the divine- 
ly-wrought states and impulses of each. 

Then, let them be read again to a compromis- 
ing professor, whose better feelings have long 
been buried beneath a mass of selfishness, and 



256 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

whose greatest anxiety is, first, to grasp the world, 
and then, to justify his conduct, and his choice 
may be as readily foreseen as can that of the 
other. 

But can that be a truly Christian creed which 
so harmonizes with such an unchristian or, at 
best, poorly Christian life ? And can that be a 
non-christian creed which so adequately meets 
and truly expresses the noblest and purest long- 
ings, and clearest perceptions of spirit-trained 
hearts ? 

If, then, the church has a faith, she should 
make haste to formulate it and thus avail herself 
cf all the educative power that may result from 
its use. 

2. As the mightiest force of evangelism. 

The only power that the gospel has over the 
minds of men, is its power to save. Eliminate 
that, and all that remains is but ingenious fable, 
or, at best, historical romance. The hold which 
it has upon the conscience is its recognized abil- 
ity to meet a pressing need, and the deeper that 
sense of need in any case, the stronger its grasp 
upon the spirit. 

Experience proves that there is no deeper 
sense of need, none, indeed, marked by such un- 
utterable yearnings, as those which characterize 
the strivings of the faithful Christian after purity. 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 257 

The cry of penitence, it is true, sometimes sobs 
forth an anguish that seems hard by the borders oi 
despair, iand pleas for mercy that might melt a 
heart of stone, indicate how desperate is the want 
within ; but the wild, instinctive shriek of the 
j)oor man who toppled over the rapids of Niag- 
ara, was as nothing to the mute appeals that his 
blanched face made, while, for hours he clung 
with the strength of desperation to the rock which 
he caught just above the terrific falls. So, the 
spirit's call for help when it first awakens to a re- 
alization of its sinfulness and peril, may be filled 
with the wild vehemence of terror, but it knows 
little of that deep, settled, self-loathing, that hun- 
gry, starving heart-ache, that consuming thirst of 
desire which wrestles through weary days, and 
waits through laggard nights, till, almost sick of 
hope deferred, and tired of life, in mute wretch- 
edness of love, it wonders if there be any help 
this side of heaven ! Ah, it is blessed to be able 
to point the w^eeping penitent to the Forgiving 
One ; and it is glorious to be able to shout in the 
ear of the polluted, " I will sprinkle clean water 
upon you, and from all your filtliiness, and from 
all your idols I will cleanse you r This is a sal- 
vation that measures out to man's broadest need, 
and finds its crowning glory in its uttermost pro- 
visions ! No wonder, then, that its loftiest chal- 



258 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

lenge ofttimes arrests where its simple proffers 
pass unnoticed ! 

Sanctified men are God's veterans in his war 
against sin. 

Militiamen may sometimes be relied upon to 
defend strongly fortified places, but when cam- 
paigns are to be fought through " on this line," 
men are needed who can face the glittering steel, 
" close up" in solid column when windrows fall, 
and when the bugle rings the charge, sweep like 
the march of Death, upon the foe. 

So, when Life's test-hours come, when the de- 
cisive struggle verges to its culmination, God 
calls for hearts that are panoplied in steel, and 
that will stand amid the shocks of battle, and 
rush to the charge of Christian efibrt, like Napo- 
leon's grand Old Guards who never knew defeat 
till they found it in annihilation. 

As we were once crossing the City Hall Park, 
the sound of martial music fell upon our ears, and 
turning towards Broadway we saw some of the 
returning regiments of the Army of the Potomac, 
and as the bronzed and battle-scarred veterans 
filed into the Park, we stood and gazed upon 
them with overflowing eyes, as we thought of 
what they had dared and done for us. 

At last, as the center of the column turned in, 
two flag-staffs, borne side by side, attracted our 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 259 

attention. Hanging from those staffs were the 
remnants of the battle-banners that had swept in 
alternate victory and defeat over the blood-soaked 
fields of the Peninsula, through the campaigns of 
Maryland and the Rappahannock, amid the ter- 
rible death-grapples of the Wilderness, and over 
the ramparts of Petersburg, and there they came 
fringed and shredded by shot and shell, begrimed 
by smoke, and scorched by flame, but wreathed 
with victory — victory at last — and our poor heart 
broke down as those banners, baptized in blood, 
spoke from all their gaping wounds of the noble 
heroes who had borne them. Ah ! they were 
veterans ! 

So, God calls for men ; sun-browned and battle- 
scarred, inured to hardships and inspired by vic- 
tory. The pure in heart and life are such. They 
have quivered in the hurtling fires of death, they 
have groped amid the smoke of conflict, they have 
crossed the cold glittering steel with old habits of 
the nature, they have swept in a rolling tide of 
victory through the fields of old indulgence, and 
they are to day bearing in triumph the blood- 
stained banner of the cross. God's veterans are 
they ! And they are recruiting their ranks for 
other campaigns and other victories. 

It is said that the Turks inscribe upon their 
sword-blades the choicest sentences of their 



260 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

Koran, in order that the most cherished senti- 
ments of their faith may be found in closest prox- 
imity with the most effective blows. So, we 
would to-day inscribe upon our w^eapons, " Holi- 
ness to the Lord !" that our gleaming steel may 
flash our faith at every blow ! 

Sanctified men become conductors of Omnipo- 
tence. 

When the will of God is accomplished in their 
sanctification, they are avenues through which its 
omnipotence reaches the world. We have heard 
believers complain of an almost agonizing sense 
of want. We have heard their groanings after 
power. We have felt them like inextinguishable 
yearnings drinking up the life. We have tried 
to analyze them, to trace them to their origin 
and find a remedy ; and we declare to you to day 
— Christian of the longing soul — there is a rest- 
ing place. You may lose those unutterable yearn- 
ings m a calm consciousness of being God's instru- 
ment and working all his will ! Holiness is power ! 
Purity is the enginery of Omnipotence ! Spirit 
jourity we have in regeneration. Habit purity 
we have in sanctification. Power purity we have 
when unbelief — the last old habit that dies the 
death — is extirpated. Those sanctified ones who 
groan for power need yet another sanctifying 
touch. Unbelief in its last lingering doubtings 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 261 

must be substituted by an all-embracing faith, 
and that will give the endowment of power ! 

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you. '^ 

Come, then. Mighty Sanctifier, and herald the 
baptism of power ! 

It needs only that your sanctified soul shall 
concentrate all its believing energies in one burn- 
ing focus that shall fuse down and dissipate the 
last lingering unbelief of your nature. If you 
like the expression, " Lay it upon the altar ! " 
If you prefer philosophical phraseology, substitute 
faith for it, and ye shall receive the power. But 
remember, inspiration is a mighty helper. Remem- 
ber ! The Holy Spirit can revolutionize a habit, 
with your concurring will and faith, in a single 
instant. Come then, just now, and begin the 
work. Holy Spirit, help ! The sprinkled blood 
is nigh. The altar flame aspires. The sacrifice 
is bound. Old unbelief writhes in bonds. Now^ 
High Priest above, we cast him on the fire ! He 
groans, he dies ! Faith lives, and claims, and 
triumphs now ! All glory to the Lamb ! 

Now do not mistake, by supposing this endow- 
ment of power to be a certain consiousness that 
you are so filled with power, that it emanates 
from you, like sun-beams from the sun. Eather 
regard yourself as an unobstructed eonducting 



262 cnnisTiAx holiness. 

wire J which needs only the connections to be 
instituted, in any Christian duty, and men are 
smitten with all the battery power of heaven. 

Remember again. The lightning has its laws, 
and so has the Spirit of Omnipotence. Encased 
in glass, or robed in silk, the lightnings play 
around but do not flash upon you. So, the sov- 
ereignty of human will begirts men, and though 
God's Spirit may kindle convictions, it cannot 
always melt them into contrition or crystalize 
them into faith. 

Your power will consist in this ; that whenever 
you discharge Christian duty, you do it so well 
that all that God can do for others, consistently 
loith the laws of his moral government, will be done. 
It will be manifest in a '' baptized persuasiveness^' 
that will subdue, and melt, and move, even though 
it fall, like the gentle sun-beam upon the icy cliffs 
of the mountain glacier. Tyndall tells us that a 
block of ice under the converged sun-beam, will 
suddenly (an inch, or inches below the surface) 
seem to resolve itself into a cluster of glittering 
stars, each with six petal-rays, shining with the 
luster of burnished silver. 

Those petal-rays are a tiny water-flower, formed 
around a star-like vacuum, and vieing in beauty 
with the frost-works of a winter's morn. So, down 
deep in the icy heart of the worldling, the little 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 263 

water-flowers are forming round the vacuum that 
glitters in the consciousness, under the melting 
power of Love, and the little water drops trickle 
out here and there, when none but the All-Seeing 
notes their fall. Oh for the " baptized persuasive- 
ness " of the Gospel ! In the pulpit ; in the altar ; 
in the prayer-meeting ; in the class-room ; in the 
family ; in the street ; in the workshop ; every- 
luhere where icy hearts expose their rigid fronts to 
the melting sun-beams of God's Love ! 

But some fearful one perhaps is asking, "Sup- 
pose I do receive the baptism of power, and no 
good results follow, what must I think ?" 

A few years ago, a young engineer was being 
examined for graduation, when his examiner pro- 
posed the following question : " Suppose you 
have a steam-pump constructed for a ship under 
your own supervision, and know that every thing 
is in perfect working order, yet when you throw 
out the hose it will not draw. What would you 
think?" 

*^I should think, sir, there must be a defect 
some where." 

" But such a conclusion is not admissible, for 
the supposition is that every thing is perfect, and 
yet it will not work." 

" Then sir, I should look over the side to see if 
the river had run dry !" 



264 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

So, in the case supposed — we should look out 
to see if God had vanished from the universe ! 
Holiness is power ! "There is in the Christian in 
whom the Lord dwells a conquering power also, 
that would be marvelous indeed if it did not belong 
to Him who dwelleth in the bush, and not to the 
Christian in himself at all. Moses was conquered 
before the bush in a few moments. He was vir- 
tually conquered when he stopped to look ; for 
when he saw the bush that it burned and yet was 
not consumed, the impulse v/as masterly in him 
to see why it was. And when the voice came 
to him out of the midst of the bush, that was 
kingly, and he obeyed it. When it said "Draw 
not nigh hither," he obeyed. And when it said, 
" Put off thy shoes," he did so. Such a bush is the 
Christian in whom the Holy One dwells, and by 
whom he shines and speaks. ^ There is in him, 
the Conquering One, with whom is all power on 
on earth and in heaven. The power is in the 
Christian, yet does not inhere in him. It is in 
the Christian because the Conquering One is in 
him, and the conquering power inheres in the 
Conquering One himself." (W, JE, Boardman 
*' In the Power of the Spirit/^ etc. 

"There was a pious lady who possessed this pow- 
er. She was one of the weak things of this world. 
This power kept her unspotted from the world* 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 265 

For fourteen years she was watched by an infidel 
who vainly endeavored to find some flaw in her 
daily life to strengthen him in his sceptical views. 
She was not aware of his intentions. Kept by 
this inward power of the Holy Spirit she walked 
on in the way, until at last the infidel was convict- 
ed by her godly, unassuming life, and brought to 
the feet of Jesus. This power is living and will 
be felt where it exists.'* " The Living Epistle.''^ 

When Christians, endowed with this power-pur- 
ity, meet in prayer, the very atmosphere may be 
so pervaded by a supernatural Presence that 
men's consciousness shall recognize it on the in- 
stant, and they shall be constrained to say — • 
"Lo, God is here!" "Ye shall receive power 
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." 
Come then Heavenly Anointing! Come En- 
shrining power ! These vessels long for Thy fill- 
ing! These lives await thy moulding. 

Some illustrative examples, furnished by Rev. 
Dr. Asa Mahan in '' Divine Life,'^ may help our 
faith. 

" When attending a conference at Red Hill, 
some years since, a minister from Australia re- 
ferred to a member of his own church, a young 
woman who labored as a domestic. On learning, 
after she had sought and obtained * the promise 
of the Spirit,' that wages were very much higher 



266 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

in a distant part of the country than where she 
was, she went thither. The speaker then read a 
letter which he had just received from the pastor 
of the church where tliis young woman had gone. 
' As I listened ' said the writer, 'to the remarks 
of that young woman in the class and prayer- 
meetings one fact very deeply impressed my mind, 
namely, that she was possessed of a power that I 
had not. So deep did that impression at length 
become, that I went to her and requested her to 
tell me the secret of that new and divine life 
which she was living. In listening to her state- 
ments, I saw clearly my own deficiency and need, 
and sought and obtained an * endument of power 
from on high.' The result of speaking to my peo- 
ple in the ' power of this endless life,' has been a 
total revolution in the state of my church, and 
the addition to its membership of between six and 
seven hundred converts from the world around, 
while the work of the Lord, v/ith no indications of 
abatement, is still going forward from strength to 
strength.' What a new power was brought into 
that community by the coming of that female do- 
mestic, coming as she did 'in the power of the 
Spirit.' In the city of Darlington lives a young 
lady named Annie Fothergill. Personally, she 
is one of the most modest, reserved, and unobtru- 
sive ladies we ever met with. ' Naturally,' she 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 267 

once remarked to us, ' I was ridiculously timid/ 
About five years since, she occupied the sphere 
of governess in a wealthy family in that city. 
After her conversion, she read ^The Baptism of 
the Holy Ghost,' sought and received ^the promise 
of the Spirit.' On receiving ' the anointing,' 
this passage was given to her as the fixed maxim 
of her life; namely, ^Whatsoever he saith to you, 
do it.' Under the influence of this, the will of 
Christ, whenever, and by whatsoever means, made 
known, has been and is the immutable law of all 
her activity. 

* Soon after her endument of power,' while wor- 
shiping with her own people, the Friends, on the 
Sabbath, an opportunity presented itself in which 
it was manifestly proper for her to give public 
testimony to the power of Divine grace to which 
she had been subject. As soon as she thought of 
doing this, all the timidity of her nature arose, 
and rendered it seemingly impossible for her to 
speak at all. She at once lifted up her heart in 
silent prayer to Christ, that he would take all that 
fear away; give her perfect self-possession and 
readiness to speak or not to speak as he should 
will. In an instant this prayer was consciously 
answered, and this perfectly self-possessed readi- 
ness to act or speak for Christ, whenever 
and wherever duty requires, has never left her. 



268 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

As soon as she became conscious that it was the 
will of Christ that she should speak, she arose and 
perfectly electrified the audience by her testi- 
mony. From that time a new era dawned upon 
that people. Soon after this, a lady, who had a 
large Bible-class of young w^omen under her in- 
struction in the Sabbath school, having occasion 
to be absent from the city for several wrecks, re- 
quested Miss F. to take charge of her class dur- 
ing the interval. This, the latter, after prayer 
for Divine direction, consented to do. On her 
return, the teacher w^as surprised and delighted 
to find every one of her pupils * rejoicing in hope 
of the glory of theLord.' 

At this time Miss F. received a request from 
the conductors of the Sabbath school to take 
charge of a band of about forty lads in the school, 
lads from 12 to 18 years of age, and so utterly law- 
less that they were called ' The Awkward Squad.' 
Finding it utterly impossible to preserve order 
among them, or in the school when they were 
present, their expulsion had been determined on. 
As a last resort, the request referred to was pre- 
sented to Miss F. After reflection and prayer, 
she consented to undertake the work to w^hich 
she was called. The first time she met the band, 
she held their fixed and almost breathless atten- 
tion for a full hour. She then invited any who 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 269 

might desire religious conversation with her to 
call at her place at a certain hour the next Tues- 
day evening. One called and was hopefully con- 
verted. The next week more than half-a-dozen 
came, and all left rejoicing in God. Soon that 
whole 'Squad' was organized into a Praying Band 
of the most devout character. Through these 
young converts, others were called in, and her 
room was flooded with converts and inquirers. 
A larger room being procured, she was request- 
ed to hold another meeting, on another evening, 
for young women. This was done with a like re- 
sult. Then a children's meeting was appointed ; 
and, lastly, one for the more elderly class. For 
four years and a half, these four weekly meetings 
have been held without interruption. The result 
has been, that in connection with these meetings, 
some five hundred or more souls have been con- 
verted, all but two or three of whom are now 
walking in the truth. Nor is there any indica- 
tion of an abatement of the powder of the work, 
the late meetings, as we are informed by a letter 
just received from Miss F., being as successful as 
former ones. She now gives her whole time to 
religious services, and is called in all directions 
to help forward the work of God, and everywhere 
the same power attends her, as at home. When 
helping in a conference at Nottingham we heard 



270 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

remarks to this effect in respect to her : ' There 
is something mysterious about that young woman. 
Her voice is feeble ; her whole manner the most 
unassuming and simple conceivable. Yet, while 
she has great power in drawing believers toward 
the Higher Life, the impenitent seem to be pow- 
erless to resist truth as she presents it.' All who 
like her, are ' full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,' 
will not be just what she is. All such, however, 
will be endued with power to ' shine as lights in 
the world ;' and to ' speak unto men to edifica- 
tion, and exhortation, and comfort.' " 

"Take one other example. Rev. William 
Taylor, ' in the power of the Spirit,' spent, as he 
states, seven months among the Kaffirs of 
Africa, speaking to the people through an inter- 
preter. During this period ' the missionaries,' 
he says, * reported the conversion to God of 7,000 
Kaffirs.' Nor did the work abate after he left. 
We recently read of one native minister there 
for example, who never addressed an audience 
without from two to twelve, or more, being con- 
verted. It is in this country that that aged 
female is going from village to village, and gath- 
ering souls by scores and hundreds into the king- 
dom of God. When will the Church of God come 
to understand wherein her great strength lies ? 
How lono; will she suffer herself to be shorn of 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 271 

her strength by the great enemy of God and 
man?" 

3. The subject applied to the ministry, 

1, As a source of personal and pulpit power. 
Upon this point let facts be our only argu- 
ments. Bishop Peck, in " Central Idea,'^ pp. 
385-7, narrates the case of a friend in these 
words : 

" My friend — had been but a short time 

from college. He was a preacher — a scholar — 
a gentleman. He had been sent to a station in 
the midst of a wealthy community, where there 
were but few members of the church, and where 
moralists, infidels, and speculators combined to 
support him. He preached constantly, learnedly, 
and, we presume, faithfully. Months passed, 
and no indications of good appeared. We met 
him at a camp -meeting. Holiness was the great 
theme of the meeting. We loved the young man 
and sought an opportunity to converse with him. 
He felt that all was not right. He believed him- 
self a Christian, and lived with a fixed purpose 
to obey and serve God. But there was a want 
of power in his preaching. He could say good 
things, but they did not cut. He seemed to him- 
self to be preaching into the air. He often felt 
the conviction that he needed a deeper work of 



272 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

grace. He prayed, and wept, and tried, but as 
it seemed in vain, to rise ; and still he had no 
such power with God as he felt belonged to his 
sacred profession. We were in a prayer-meeting 
when he uttered with earnestness, but not with 
much emotion, the prayer — ' Lord, sanctify 
my soul!'" 

Then follows an account of his struggles and 
blessing, and the Bishop continues : " The -meet- 
ing closed, and ' another spirit ' was in our friend. 
He was humble, simple-hearted, and sweet as a 
child. But the power of Jehovah was in his 
preaching and his prayers. His hearers were 
amazed at the change in the preacher. The 
spirit of holiness burned and flamed out in every 
sermon. The word, like a two-edged, burnished, 
Jerusalem blade, cut its way to the hearts of the 
people. Brave men wept like children. Strong 
men bowled themselves under a might which they 
could not see. Infidels trembled and stood 
aghast before the divinity which spake in the 
words and appeared in the movements of the 
man ! The work was powerful beyond all prece- 
dent in that vicinity. It swept like fire through 
that hitherto hardened and unbelieving commu- 
nity, bringing down infidel teachers, moralists, 
and scofiers indiscriminately, before the altar of 
God. Whole families were converted, the church 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 273 

was firmly established, they who were not a peo- 
ple had become a strong and conquering army 
of the Lord ; and all — let no one dare to doubt 
it — by the baptism of fire, which, in answer to 
faith and prayer, had fallen upon the servant of 
God." 

Were this a solitary example in the history of 
the ministry, it might be reasonably questioned 
whether the results attributed to his asserted ex- 
perience did not really proceed from some other 
cause. But the facts show that similar results, 
to a greater or less extent, follow such experi- 
ences with sufficient uniformity to prove a relation 
of sequence. Nor should this be wondered at. 
Love-power and faith-power, culminating in 
Holy-Ghost-power, are the very means which 
God has chosen by which to advance his cause in 
the world. Holiness is love-power and faith- 
power in their mightiest subjective operations. 

These forces turned outward, are co-operated 
with by Holy-Ghost-power just as spontaneously 
and instantaneously as the Holy Spirit works in- 
wardly upon the establishment of the appropriate 
conditions. Hence, the more completely domi- 
nant these forces are in the heart's experience, 
the more thoroughly co-operative will the divine 
Power be in the objective work ! This is simply 
the philosophy of the fitness of things ! More- 



274 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

over it is in perfect harmony with God's an- 
nounced principle of gospel work, namely : 
" That the excellency of the power may be of 
God and not of men." Therefore the less of self, 
and the more of Christ, the less of '' roots of bit- 
terness,'^ and the more of " holiness," must of 
necessity result in more of gospel fruits. 

The types of the old dispensation had a most 
significant bearing upon this very point. The 
scrupulous care which priests were bound to ex- 
ercise in the performance of their functions, to 
keep themselves ceremonially clean, was un- 
doubtedly designed to impress Israel with the 
fact that Jehovah was a God of purity, and that 
those who stood between Him and the people 
should be correspondingly without spot. Hence, 
''' Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord," 
was recognized, not only as a proper ritualistic 
command, but as expressing an imperative de- 
mand arising from the necessities of the case. 
That was a time of shadows. The morning had 
not then dawned. But the '' fullness of time '* 
came. The gospel sun blazed out God's purity 
in effulgence brighter far than Horeb's fire- 
crowned summit or tabernacle or temple " glory.'' 
And with the growing radiance God's commis- 
sions widened, his empowerments multiplied and 
augmented, his agencies changed from the out- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 275 

ward and visible to the inward and " not carnal," 
and a deeper spirituality and more satisfying 
communion became the marked and prominent 
characteristics of the dispensation of the Spirit ! 

That heart-purity o^nd faith-power should nowhe 
the measure of ministerial efficiency, can surely not 
be deemed out of keeping with the design and 
spirit of this new dispensation. The Jewish 
priest must be pure externally, in a system of 
externals ; the Christian minister must be pure 
internally, in a system of internals. God's Power 
preserved his people then. His Grace preserves 
his people now. '^ The sword of the Lord and 
of Gideon " gained conquests then. '* My Spirit, 
saith the Lord," and " the words of their testi- 
mony," win triumphs iiow. Hence an experience 
molded by the Holy Spirit, a heart in restful 
reliance upon the promise, " I am with thee," a 
faith claiming all of aggressive efficiency that 
God can bring out of the natures under sway — 
these are the prime conditions of successful labor. 
That they are furnished in larger measure and 
less counterpoised by an experience of heart 
purity than by one of heart impurity, is too evi- 
dent to need argument. 

Behold, then, the tremendous responsibility of 
the true minister of Christ ! He is not only to 
preach what he believes to be the truth, but such 



276 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

practical truth as will touch human nature at all 
points of its contact with sin ; and so to preach 
such truth, as to make it evident that he is not 
theorizing but testifying, and testifying not merely 
a gospel antagonism to some sins, but a gracious 
extirpation of all voluntary sins. Here he ex- 
emplifies a boundlessness that honors God's 
grace, and an exclusiveness that is in perfect 
correspondence with His purity, instead of being 
a practical apologist for man's infirmities, and a 
special pleader for life-long carnality. 

Men who buy goods '* by sample " judge of 
the quality of the stock by the samples shown. 
Ministers are most emphatically sample exhibitors 
to the world. The honor of the house and the 
prospects of trade depend upon the right selection 
and faithful exhibition. Therefore, every Chris- 
tian minister's preaching should be, in substance, 
" i declare unto you that which T do know ;" 
and his knowledge should be deep enough and 
broad enough to furnish a fair sample of what 
grace can do to save a sinner from guilt, and self, 
and habits of perversion. Then, God can use 
him, and take the glory of results to himself, 
" That the excellency of the power may be of 
God and not of man." 

This experience is the focalization of every 
human instrumentality and consequent secure- 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 277 

ment of the maximum of divine co-operative 
power. This focalization is the one-ideaism of 
an all-commanding purpose ; the constraining 
magnetism of a mighty assurance ; the electrify- 
ing enthusiasm of a faith that asks without 
doubting, trusts without fearing and works with- 
out wearying — accompanied by a self-surrender 
that ignores the prudence of selfishness, and 
deems crosses and perils things to profit by, thus 
exhibiting a zeal that inflames under difficulties 
and is inspired by obstacles to a more consum- 
ing fervor, and an eager watchfulness that stands 
ready girded upon the outposts of past conquest 
listening for the call of duty in every opening 
opportunity, while yearning with unappeasable 
soul-hunger to see men saved, and groaning out 
importunate entreaties in the unutterable be- 
seechings of Gethsemanes of Christly sympathy. 
Another consideration is presented by Bishop 
E. L. Janes in " Perfect Love,'' p. 18. " Christian 
holiness invests the gospel minister with the 
power of usefulness in the time of advanced 
years. The time is coming when ... by the 
pressure of years and infirmities, w^e shall be 
obliged to retire from the active work of the 
ministry. Such will find holiness of heart and 
life the best substitute for the activities of the 
ministrv/' 



278 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

2. As a means of revival interest 

Eevivals are largly special results of the opera 
tion of religious sympathies. Some Christian deep 
ly imbued with a sense of the peril of his unsaved 
friendSj wrestles in prayer for their salvation. 
As his mind is wrought up in the exercise into 
increased ardor, the sympathetic element glows 
with more intense fervor. By the law of the 
Spirit's action his operations are correspondingly 
increased both upon the hearts of the subjects of 
prayer, and upon those whose spirits are in fellow- 
ship with the praying one. These catch the in- 
fluence and widen the circle of special sympathy 
and corresponding effort and a revival is the 
result. 

Now, if we inquire what quality in the experi- 
ence of Christians best fits them to be in a state 
of spontaneous sympathy with those who may be 
deeply exercised for the salvation of the impeni- 
tent, the answer must be — There are but two 
qualities supposable, namely, (1) Mixed carnality 
and purity, or, (2) Christian purity. Between 
the two it would be an impeachment of ordinary 
intelligence to suppose that any one could hesitate 
for a moment. 

If wilful blindness should still insist that it is de- 
debatable ground, one preliminary question should 
be settled before the debate begins, namely : what 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 279 

is the causal connection between carnality and 
Christian sympathy? When that is definitely 
decided as within the realm of favoring possibil- 
ities, then indeed may Christain sympathy be sup- 
posed to be the fruifc of unchrisitan tendencies, 
enmities may generate friendships, sin may help 
holiness. 

Crowding the investigation a little further back, 
it needs but a moment's consideration to show 
that the same quality which best fits Christians 
to imbibe this spirit of earnest prayerful sympa- 
thy from others, likewise best prepares them to 
become the root springs of such sympathy. Hence 
it follows, that whether we seek for the best heart- 
preparation for becoming a first nucleus of revival 
energy, or re-inforcements to such energy already 
in the struggle, in either case heart purity has 
the maximum of constitutional spontaneities, and 
the minimum of clogging antagonisms. 

The essential quality of such experience there- 
fore, commends it as a means of revival interest. 
The possibilities of such an experience are open 
to every believer ; therefore, within every believer 
inhere the potential factors of a revival. That is, 
heart-purity realized, and its loving sympathies 
actualized in special work, the revival spirit as 
naturally ensues as heat from a flame. " A man 
who is filled with the efficiency which is of God, 



280 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

has a revival within him, and it must develop. 
There is about him the swing of victory." 

How vast then must be the responsibility of 
those who decline, or neglect the empowerment 
for lack of which Zion languishes and the world 
dies ! Nor can any of the ordinary excuses pal- 
liate the guilt of such neglect. Our mission is 
not to plead exemption, but to be saving men 
and women ; not to beg for indulgences, but to 
represent our self-sacrificing Lord ; not to trim to 
worldly maxims and shape our course by self- 
seeking principles, but to be dead to the world 
and to crucify self. If we are animated by 
this spirit, we shall not quibble over terms and 
strive to see how little holiness is compatible 
with a Christian profession, but abandoning our- 
selves to the spirit-quickened instincts of our re- 
generated hearts, we shall feel best satisfied in 
getting farthest from the world, and most in our 
native element when giving loving sympathies 
full play. 

A Church exhibiting these preferences is, by 
the very necessities of the case in revival work, so 
long as they thus continue. On the contrary, 
who does not know that the most important and 
the most difficult work of preparation for revivals 
consist in labored attempts to extirpate the car- 
nal tastes, dissipations, and habits of professed 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 281 

Christians ? To nnnisters, therefore, as leaders in 
the revival movements of the church, God has a 
right to look for the best attainable personal 
experience to fit them for their position. " Like 
priest, like people," contains an intimation of re- 
sponsibility of tremendous significance in this 
connection. 

4. The subject applied to the Press. 

1. As a standard of public morality. 

One of the mightiest forces of modern civiliza- 
tion is The Press — that multiform potency which 
interpenetrates the family, society, business circles, 
political associations, national councils, and inter- 
national assemblies ; and before which the peasant 
in his hamlet, and the king upon his throne, alike 
bow in deference. That such a force should have 
not only a correct but the best standard of public 
morality, is a matter of immense importance to the 
public weal. As it now is— divided against itself 
— its utterances as a whole have not the clear 
ring of the most high-toned principle, and there- 
fore fail to prove the boon to humanity that good 
men have a right to expect. 

There is a gospel of purity in the world, en- 
shrined in the Sacred Book, whose divine truths 
have lifted modern civilization from the semi- bar- 
barism of the past, and that can guide men amid 



282 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

all the intricacies of ambitious state-craft, and 
all the whirls of political intrigue, and all the per- 
plexities of clashing business enterprises, and by 
their very exclusiveness in supreme excellence, 
these truths demand the recognition of the intel- 
ligence of the world — such recognition as can be 
given only by the elevation of the principle of 
Christian purity to the place of the ultimate stand- 
ard in practical morality. 

2. As a reformatory agency among men. 

Let that standard be adopted in all editorial 
sanctums as the" unabridged" authority upon all 
ethical questions, and the mists of doubt that hang 
like portents of disaster over so many social cus- 
toms, business expedients and political policies, 
would dissolve like the fogs of the morning ; pub- 
lic sentiment — that wizened specter of compromise 
— that feared and hated, cajoled and outraged 
reality — would walk the earth as an evangel of 
purity and peace. Let this standard be adopted, 
and the "line upon line and precept upon pre- 
cept," with which the press would deluge society, 
would do more than furnish a practical standard 
of right living, for these efforts to gvAde the vir- 
tuous masses would in the very nature of things 
give an upward trend to all social stratas, and 
prove reformatory by just so much as they are 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 283 

elevating. All reformation does not consist in 
snatching individuals from special careers of 
crime ; indeed the very best is that which takes 
hold of viciously disposed blood and brain, and 
by added impulses toward right, or change of en- 
vironments, modifies or neutralizes the virus^ and 
renders the product something other than criminal. 
That a sanctified press would furnish such im- 
pulses and help to change the surroundings of the 
unfortunate classes, cannot be questioned. The 
herding iniquities of over-crowded tenement house 
life, the festering sores of public dens of infamy, 
the licensed fever spots of alcoholic degradation 
— all these could be scathed and blighted out of be- 
ing by the burning words of rebuke that a holy press 
might shower upon them like indignant heaven's 
fires upon their prototype — the Sodom of old. 
And with the banishment of these potent pesti- 
lence breeders from social life would come, by 
legitimate substitution, something more in accord 
with purified public sentiment and vastly more 
helpful to the wretched victims of inborn vicious 
tendencies, and equally encouraging to those who 
— under the teachings of the press — would be 
struggling to emancipate themselves from the 
thraldom of degrading habits. Thus would re- 
formation stretch her hands of helpfulness to all 
imploring ones, while lifting the bed level of all 



284 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

unfavorable social life to such a plain as would 
render the process of childhood education some- 
thing odier than increasing capacity for and de- 
light in the practices of evil. 

The magnitude of the aggregate responsibility of 
the press can be measured only by the stupendous 
possibilities viewed in contrast with facts as they 
are. And the responsibility of the reader can 
only be estimated by the might of that door open- 
ing hand of Providence, which Paul instructed 
his converts to move by the power of their prayers. 
Col. 4 : 3. Let the Churches make prayer unto 
God without ceasing for the sanctification of the 
press. 

5. The subject applied to Institutions of Learn- 
ing, 

1. As crowning culture with the glory of purity. 

Character is the flower of being. Culture is a 
method of development. Development reaches 
its highest point of excellence in the most com- 
plete and perfect character. 

The culture of a single faculty or set of facul- 
ties to the neglect of the complemental or coun- 
terpoising faculties, can end only in the unbal- 
anced condition which is practical perversion. 
The intelectual and the esthetical may be devel- 
oped to the highest degree, and the institutions 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 285 

in which the process is conducted will still be only 
nurseries of philosophical speculation, scientific 
research, and literary proficiency — not educators 
of the entire man. The moral and religious may 
be added, and still education may fall short of the 
high demands of a character-culture befitting 
those who aim to reach the maximum of human 
attainment. 

Now add the spiritual power of personal sanc- 
tity to the embracing and interpenetrating atmos- 
phere of college life, to the routine of chapel ex- 
ercises, to the personal magnetism of social and 
official intercourse, and to the authoritative in- 
terpretations of truth in the recitation and lecture 
rooms, and it will need no theological addenda to 
the curriculum to cause the rays that gild the 
homes of culture to brighten to a golden glory 
like that whose splendors enfolded the burnished 
roof of Jerusalem's Temple in the full effulgence 
of the eastern sun. 

2. As approximating the attainable perfection 
of manhood. 

Following the analogy suggested by the more 
and more upright successive forms of the verta- 
brate type of animal life — fishes, reptiles, birds, 
and mammals — the conclusion has been reached 
upon purely scientific ground, that the coronal is 
the crowning development of creation, (See Agas- 



286 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

siz, Dana, and others.) Physio-psychology has 
demonstrated that the coronal is the special phy- 
sical instrument of the moral and religious. 
Therefore it seems strictly philosophical to infer 
that man approximates his highest attainable per- 
fection in the complete sovereignty of the coronal 
over the basilar — in other words, of the spiritual 
over the animal. If this proposition be accepted, 
it follows thpvt the experience which is most pure- 
ly spiritual, i. e., least dominated or influenced by 
the carnal is the nearest to the ideal that we must 
entertain of the perfect man. 

That this is in exact accordance with the de- 
sign of the Gospel is evident in such passages as 
this: "That the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works." That 
this perfection has an element of the supernatural 
does not in the least detract from its desirableness. 
On the other hand, rone know so well as the 
scholars within, or made by the institutions of 
learning, how all the ages testified to man's moral 
impotency unaided by something out of or above 
himself. And none should be so quick as these 
men of culture to detect the fact that the keenest 
science may find its ultimate in the very super- 
natural which supplements man's best endeavors 
to reach an ideal perfection, with a co-efficiency 



ITS PHILOSOPHY AND EXPERIENCE. 287 

that realizes at length " the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ." 

3. As giving such institutions the moulding 
power that they ought to possess. 

To say that that power must be anything less 
than the culture of the entire man after the best 
and most vigorous type of development, is to say 
that humanity has not yet evolved institutions 
commensurate with its needs or representative of 
its aspirations. We are unwilling to charge such 
deficiency upon the honored seats of learning 
which have been esteemed hitherto as the well- 
ripened fruit of human progress. And if they have 
in the past largely delegated special spiritual cul- 
ture to the church, let it not be construed as the 
abnegation of a right to lay their plastic hand 
upon the highest destinies of men, but rather as 
an indication of voluntary devotion to the com- 
paratively inferior interest of mental training. 

If our philosophy be correct — not as an expo- 
sition of a dogma, but as an explanation of Sifact 
— then is that fact demonstrated ; and the demon- 
stration of an experimental fact necessarily throws 
it within the catalogue of some department of 
science ; and as one prime object of colleges and 
universities is to teach and illustrate science, 
therefore, whatever moral or religious power they 
can wield by the scientific and practical presen- 



288 CHRISTIAN HOLINESS. 

tation of the great fact of holiness of heart is a 
measure of iDfluence that legitimately pertains 
to their sphere. 

It should be matter of profound gratitude that 
there are institutions of learning which dare to 
make prominent, as the acme of human culture 
a Christly Spiritual perfection engrafted upon 
and the outgrowth of a symmetrical and complete 
mental development, sustained by a vigorous and 
unperverted physical organism. May the day soon 
dawn that shall see all arrayed in a line of sanc- 
tified effort that shall fill the sphere of responsi- 
bility, bless men, and glorify God with the 
ripened fruits of human progress allied with 
transforming grace. Amen. 



THE POWER OF GRACE 

OVEK. ACQUIRED HABITS, SPECIAL INBORN PERVER.SITIES, 
AND THE NATURAL APPETITES, 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

^^THE WONDROUS NAME/' 

By Rev. S. H. PL ATT, A. M., 

Exhibiting the Power of Grace in the complete breaking up of estab- 
lished Habits, and the mstanta7zeoics extirpation of Appetites that have 
held sway for years. 

The Tobacco, Opium, Rum and Sexual Appetites, and the Habits of 
Irritability and Gluttony, are treated from the standpoint of actual ex- 
perience. 

Full of facts and illustrative examples which ministers can use. 

"Its details of marvelous triumphs over appetite, are full of inspira- 
tion to special workers, such as Crusaders, Praying Bands, Young Men's 
Christian Associations, and others." 

**It inspires hope in bosoms that have long ceased to hope." 

*^ Every vie dm of perverse appetite or evil habit, and every friend of 
such victim,^ should read this book.'* 

The works from the pen of this gifted and talented preacher of the 
gospel are all so full of life and spiritual power, that it only needs to an- 
nounce the issue of a new book from him, to secure for it the widest 
circulation. The present little work, very handsomely gotten up by the 
publisher, is well v/orthy of taking a place by the side of the author's 
other productions, such as "Princely Manhood," '^Elijah the Tishbite," 
**The Philosophy of Christian Holiness," &c., and should be carefully 
studied by all over whom the power of evil habits has been exercised- 
In it science and religion are united to form a philosophy, ample enough 
to meet every case, and, if carried into practice, to break down the 
power of reigning sin, and the besetments of our nature. — The Chris- 
tian Visitor, 



Most useful, valuable and instructive. Should it have a circulation 
commensurate with its merits, it would be read by all. It strikes at the 
very root of evil. It is logical, powerful and convincing, and clothed 
with such elegance of diction and beauty of expression that the appre- 
ciative reader cannot well close the book till he has finished it. It 
abounds in beautiful passages, but piges 167-8 are the most sublime, 
beautiful and poetical that we have ever read. — The Well Spring. 

Is well written, and the author is a man of learning and ability. — Pitts- 
biL7'gh Christian Advocate. 

Good people will rejoice with those v/hose experience the author ad- 
duces in proof of his theory. — The Christian Union. 

Furnishes thoughtful and consolatory answers to all who inquire sin- 
cerely for salvation from sinful habits and evil appetites of all kinds. — 
Pacific Christian Advocate. 

It is the most complete setting forth of the power of divine grace to 
save from acquired habits, special inborn perversities and the natural 
appetites, that has ever been published in this country. — Christian 
Sta7idard and Home yournal. 

This is a timely and forcible effort to show the practical power of faith 
in the control of the various forms of the self-life included in the title. 
The argument is cumulative and powerful ; the spirit kind and sympa- 
thetic ; discriminations clear ; inspirations strong and helpful. It is 
greatly needed, and it meets the want. — Union in Christ. 

It displays much care and research. — Brookly?i Eagle. 

It displays ripe scholarship. — Brooklyn Argus. 

Rev. S. H. Piatt, A. M., of Brookl}m, has done the cause of truth 
great service in the issue of this little work and to which he has added 
his great sermon on the *' Wondrous Name." 

Mr. Piatt is mentally given to analysis, and has been led to close re- 
search in natural philosophy. The little book before us is the answer 
to the foliov/ing questions in brief: I. Can grace, under nervous ex- 
haustion, maintain in us a freedom from irritability? 2. Is felt 
irritability of temper inconsistent v/ith a holy heart ? 3. Can we 
be instantaneously delivered from the power of acqtcired habit? 4. 
May we expect deliverance from inborn cravings for stimulants, &:c., 
in answer to prayer for purifying grace? 5. Can the strongest appetite 
of the human organism be so subdued in a moment by the power of the 



Holy Spirit, that fiiereafter, solicitation to indulgence shall not disturb 
the peace of the soul ? 6. May we hope that we may be freed from 
matured inherent perversity, so that we may thereafter rest from fre- 
quent or almost constantly soul-harrassing conflict with desire ? Having 
in a somewhat more elaborate manner than we have given them stated 
his queries, Mr. Piatt proceeds by the direct method of answer, of — '^to 
the law and to the testimony;" **in the mouth of two or three wit- 
nesses shall every word be established." 

First selecting the tobacco habit, as a representative of its class, and 
furnishing a feaiful array of evidence of its destructive effects, and in- 
stancing cases of earnest and most hopeless struggles with the dominant 
evil, Mr. Piatt boldly declares of all efforts at reform: *' Instantaneous 
extirpatation, by the power of grace, in answer to prayer is the best 
way." *'Is it possible? Let testimony decide." Then under their 
appropriate headings the author gives the result of close reading and 
extensive correspondence on the subject, which conclusively proves that 
there is no habit, however confirmed, which may not be instantaneous- 
ly eradicated by the power of the Holy Ghost. The instances of the 
thorough eradication of long acquired sinful indulgences are numerous 
and startling enough to create hope in the bosom of the most despair- 
ing, and conclusive enough to stop the mouth of every gainsayer. 

The sermon which follows is really but a development of the "great 
question of the author's book — *' Is grace Almighty?" The pleasing 
and confidential style of the preacher wins the attention of his reader 
from the first, while the strangely unconscious incisiveness of the prac- 
tical questions advanced makes every one feel that " there is something 
here for me! " We confess that it is a long time since we have risen 
from the perusal of a sermon which, beside the great subject on which 
it treats, has so impressed us with its practicability and beauty as this 
sermon on *'The Wondrous TN'ame." — The Christian Standard, 



FOURTH EDITION. 



Muslin, i6iro., 185 pa^es, printed onfine tinted and calendered paper, and sent 
post paid, for 80c. to any address; same with Photo, of the author, 90c.; flexible 
cioth edition, 40c. 

THE HOPE PUBLISHING CO., 

9 Dk Bevoise Place, Brooklyn, N. Y 



PRINCELY MANHOOD: 

A Private Treatise 

ON THE PROCREATIVE INSTINCT AS RELATED TO MORAL AND 
CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

FOR MALES ONLY. 

By Rev, S. H, PLA TT, A, M, 

EIGHTH EDITION. 



Wkat is said about ''Princely Manhood:'' 
It is clear, earnest and pure. I trust it meets a large sale. Its entire 
freedom from mercenary and other unworthy motives, gives it a strong 
claim upon the attention of parents. I do not see why you should say, 
- for adults only." I should be more than willing to have a daughter 
or son of ten or twelve years of age read and study every line of it- 
Hoping that you will use every honorable means to secure a broad dis- 
tribution of this admirable little work, I am, Yours very truly, 

Dio Lewis. 

The main purpose of this writing is to thank you for '' Princely Man- 
hood " a copy of which I saw yesterday for the first time. I have read 
it through twice. I am forty-six years old, have read many books and 
more men, bat in this little book now for the first time have seen a 
plain statement of a truth I have known to exist. This generation will 
die unsaved, but the time will come when good men mil understand 
and obey this truth that you have so modestly set forth. / know how 
much need there is of it, and could write a volume of illustrative facts 
to prove its necessity. ^ ^^^^^^^^^ Business Man of Brooklyn. 

We advise parents to read this book. 

^ Mrs. Annie WiTTENMEYER. 

*a shall feel it my duty, as a Christian minister, to circulate 
Princely Manhood. =*^ * * it will do a vast amount of good." 
—A widely-known Clergyman in the West. 

A gentleman in high official position, in Brooklyn, N. Y., writes : 
" Acquaintance with its truths will be of inestimable value to all who 
seek hio-h moral or Christian attainments. It is a scientific, phiiosophi- 



cal and Chrlstainly showing of matters most intimately connected with 
human welfare, and of which most are deplorably ignorant." . 

From Brooklyn also comes the following indorsement by one of its 
most successful physicians: 

' ' The theme is one that has been thought to belong only to my own 
profession, yet I see no objection to its careful handling by any prudent 
minister who is sufficiently acquainted with the related sciences to speak 
intelligently about it. lilr. Piatt's treatment of the subject is thoroughly 
scientific, intensely practical, chaste in expression, and, in its exhibition 
of the helpfulness of Grace, greatly exalting to one's conception of the 
Gospel as a Cure for human sin. It will not only do good^ but just the 
^ind oi good most needed.'''' 

Another intelligent and successful physician writes from a city in 
Connecticut : 

** Its influence for good upon the lives and health of those who read 
it can scarcely be estimated. I believe it will harmonize many domes- 
tic difficulties, and so instruct parents that children will be saved from 
many pernicious habits." 

A clergyman, of Boston, says: **It ought to be read by every adult 
in the world." 

** Its statements are so clear, its conclusions so sound, its spirit so 
pure and exalted, that I would fully recommend it to all the world." 

Another, in New Haven, writes: 

**It is a mighty incentive to true, royal Christian manhood." 

The president of a Southern college writes: 

" Other books of great value have been written upon this subject, 
and many more will be, and, on account of the immense importance 
thereof, need be. Some of these I have read, and none of them with- 
out seeing in them excellencies. Your work, however, exceeds them all 
in this, thai it looks at tile subject from the standpoint of exalted spiritual 
life. When you so strongly present the blessings of * the sanctified dis- 
use of any faculty or function which Providence bars out of legitimate 
opportunity,' you lay open one of the noblest manifestations of a true 
faith in God and obedience to Him. A volume might be evolved from 
the broad truth here opened. 



*' It is well said that purity of thought is the most difficult attainment 
in the Christian life, and the author, in his attempt to elevate the 
struggling aspirant to a life of rectitude, has evinced a brave indiffer- 
ence to prurient sensibilities, and a noble aim to benefit humanity. We 
could wish that this outspoken, honest, and convincing book might 
go forth, not only to correct existing evils, but prevent the demoraliza- 
.tion caused by such infamous literature as tends only to inflame passion 
and ruin body and soul." — Methodist Home Journal. 

''Except the Bible, no father can give his child a more valuable 
literary keepsake than this. Millions of money and years of life would 
be saved if men would heed its words." — A Professional Writer. 

*'It must do much good and is greatly needed." — Rev. E. P. Ham- 
mond (the Evangelist). 

A gentleman connected with the Associated Press of New York 
writes : Dear Mr. Piatt: — In acknowledging the receipt of your 
unequaled book on '* Princely Manhood," let me thank you for the soul 
feast I had in reading it. You have given, in my judgment, the only 
;f>racHcal solution of this much vexed question. Could I but have read 
this work years ago it would have shed much light on a dark pathway. 
I never supposed i]\2iifrom temptation you would evolve strength to resist 
teuiptation. This you have substantially done. The more I think of it 
the stranger it seems to me that ministers of the gospel should so long 
have held their peace. This I can only regard as reprehensible in the 
extreme. Where the 7nost light is needed^ there we find utter darkness. 
The subject is mainly handled /r^;;? nierce7tary motives by quacks and 
charlatans, who, v/ith their illustrated works, but pour gunpowder into 
a magazine already on fire. 

1 shall take great pains to circulate this work and have already 
called attention to it through the press. Were I able I would place it 
in the hands of every young man competent to receive the truth and 
bid him find therein the firm yet gentle guidance his wavering soul is 
longing for. 

If your Queenly Womanhood is half as ably gotten up, I think you 
owe it to a suffering generation to place it in their hands as speedily as 
possible." 

/'Princely Manhood is a peculiar volume, treating in a singularly deli 
cate and healthful way a most difficult and tender theme. It is a d.^ 



cussion of the sexes and their most sacred relations from the standpoint 
of a living, holy Christian experience. We welcome the book, and wish 
it a wide reading in this wicked age. " — Sunday School Teachers y ournal. 

*' I am very much pleased with ** Princely Manhood," and wish I 
could have possessed it years ago. I have always felt that there was 
too much false modesty in refraining from treating such subjects in a 
Scriptural manner." — Rev. yohn Q. Ada?ns. 

** ' Princely Manhood^ is truly a book for the times, and of great 
value." — The World's Crisis. 

'* A valuable book." — A Pro77iine7tt Presiding Elder of Ohio . 

** I consider Princely Manhood the best of its kind." ** Ought to be 
in every mans's hand." — An influential Minister of New Jersey. 

" You have intrepidly and wisely treated a subject — ^ Princely Man- 
hood ' — on which information is much needed, and one which it is 
almost impossible to treat orally, as you have so faithfully and success- 
fully done with the pen. — C. K. True, D. D. 

* * Allow a layman to thank you for Princely Manhood. " Had it been 
placed in my hands earlier in life I would be to-day a stronger and 
better man. It is one of the most valuable books that I ever read. 
One of the best known Business Men of Brooklyn. 

*' I have read many works on anatomy, the sexual function and its 
abuse, &c., but have failed to find one which treated the subject from 
the stand point you have done. This is the true position, though 
almost entirely ignored by medical writers. It should be read care- 
fully by parents especially that they may realize the danger of leaving 
their children in ignorance. " — A Wealthy Business Man. 
- ''Princely Manhood" and "Queenly Womanhood" have been 
recommended to me very highly by Rev. G. P., M. D. of this place. 
A Clergyman of Conn. 

'* A most excellent work and I trust you may increase its circulation 
a hundred fold." — A Lay Delegate to the General Conference. 

A full Index of Princely Manhood will be sent free to any address. 
i6mo, 156 pages. Sent post-paid, paper, 50 cents; cloth, 60 cents, by 

THE HOPE FUBLfSHING CO., 

9 De Bevoise Place, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

If the price seems high, it should be remembered that all special works 2ixe 
necessarily so ; but this is far below the average of special works. 



QUEENLY WOMANHOOD: 

A Private Treatise, 
FOR FEMALES, 

ON THE SEXUAL INSTINCT AS RELATED TO MORAL AND 
RELIGIOUS LIFE. 

By Rev. S. H. PL ATT, A. M. 



FOURTH EDITION. 



This work is the complement of Princely Manhood, and has for the 
female sex the same delicate statement of facts, a like clearness of the- 
ory, and the same presentation of the glorious possibilities that have 
rendered Princely Manhood an unequaled counsellor and help to males. 

IT IS A BOOK FOR EVERY MOTHER, WIFE AND DAUGHTER. 

Says the Author: "From the numerous revelations made to us in the 
course of thirty years of the most confidential relations with people in 
all the walks of life, we are prepared to affirm that were 'Princely Man- 
hood ' and * Queenly Womanhood ' made a part of the home reading of 
every hoy and girl in the land, multitudes would be saved from habits, 
the injurious character of which they do not know, and \}iiQ,faci of which 
their parents do not suspect ; and multitudes of the after marriage es- 
trangements — culminating in divorce courts, the mutual separations, and 
the chronic home repellances (worse even than separation) — would never 
occur. " 

V/hat is said of "" Queenly Wo7na7ihood : " 
**I have received one copy of *' Queenly Womanhood," but it is so 
good and true that I cannot keep it at home. It is tv/enty miles av/ay 

now, and I want another." — Mrs. F , of A , Mich. 

Rev. S. H. Piatt, A. M., is the well-known Methodist clergyman 
whose healing by the prayer of faith, at Brooklyn, N. Y., several years 
since, excited much attention and comment. He is a man of marked 
ability, originality and power ; one for whom great things have been 
done by the divine Master. He is the author of ** Princely Manhood," 
and ** Queenly Womanhood," two volumes peculiar in their kind, but 
of much value to those for whom they are intended. Doubtless the 



9 

author is right in his facts, advice and conclusions. It is well for mt 
and women to read and ponder these volumes. They will learn thin: 
they knew not, learn the terrible power of temptation, learn swe 
charity, learn how weak they all are, learn the power of grace and ho 
strong they may become in Jesus Christ. — T/ie Bible Banner, 

*' Having received great help from the perusal of your works (Princ 
ly Manhood and Queenly Womanhood), I can do no less than thai 
you most heartily for the good words they contain, and wish every mj 
and woman, boy and girl might read them. They have been of unto] 
value to me."- — F. A, Z. of Conn, 

'*I desire a supply of your private works, Princely Manhood ar 
Queenly Womanhood, for circulation in India. I am sure they a: 
greatly needed and I think their circulation will do good." — W. J, G 
Bojnbay, India. 

^ * I can think of no works so important in the exaltation of humani 
as your ** Princely Manhood " and *' Queenly Womanhood.'* I ha-^ 
felt the need of them so much in my professions (physician and mini 
ter), when I have met with so many who were suffering soul and hoc 
from ignorance of what they might learn, yet in the present state of s^ 
ciety I could not communicate in conversation. "—i?^z/. A, N. H.,M. D 
of Mass, 

" Queenly Womanhood '* and **The Power of Grace" are excelled 
works and should be more widely known and read." — L, IV. G., apron 
inent Official of Ontario, Canada. 

'* Princely Manhood has done me untold good, for which I am vei 
grateful, and I desire *^ Queenly Womanhood," hoping it will do me j 
much good as its complement." — C. C, of Conn. 

In the statement of general principles and such conclusions as relai 
alike to both sexes, the matter is the same as '* Princely Manhood, 
while information for females only is found in * * Queenly Womanhood 
aloite. 

A full Index of '* Queenly Womanhood " will be sent free to any address. 
Fourth edition. i6mo., pp. i6o, 60 cts., paper, 50 cts.,post paid ^o any ai 
dress by 

THE HOPE P VBLISHING CO., 

9 De Bevoise Place, Brooklyn, N. "5 



10 

MY TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR JUBILEE 



CURE BY FAITH AFTER TVYENTY-FIVE YEARS OF 
LAMENESS. 



By Rev. S. H, PLATT, A, M. 



A plain statement of the permanent cure of the Author from a lameness of 
twenty-five years' standing, 5j/ no other means than faith in prayer. 



"We admit the high character of Mr. Piatt and the entire reliability 
of any facts stated by him. " — N, Y. WiUiess, 

** He is well known, and the cure is well authenticated. Why should 
we marvel?" — Baptist Union. 

' ' Is this a miracle or is it not ? If not, what is it ?" — Christian at Work. 

*' God is increasing the faith of his people, giving more and more re- 
liance upon Him to heal the souls and bodies of men in answer to be- 
lieving prayers. Lord, increase our faith." **Why should not the 
prayer-force be able to produce results as tangible as any other force in 
the universe ? " — New York Herald, 

*' We trust that we may hear of many thousands of such cures." — 
Newark Daily Advertiser, 

" Personal knowledge of the author increases our confidence in his 
remarkable story." — The Advance. 

'* My Twenty-fifth Year Jubilee is v/onderfully encouraging to faith 
in God's promises." — Unio7i in Christ, 

i2mo, 6opp. Sent post paid to any address for 15 cents. Enlarged 
Edition, containing reply to critics, 20 cents. 

THE HOPE PUBLISHING CO., 

9 De Bevoise Place, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



11 
THE MAN OF LIKE PASSIONS: 

OR, 

Elijah the Tishbite. 
By Rev, S, H. FLA TT, A, M. 



THIRD EDITION. 



**Its character and scope are thus set forth in the preface: 

*^ 'A holy character impressively pictured to the mind becomes 
treasure in the memory, and a formative power m the experience, T 
grandest life in ancient history was that of the Tishbite Prophet, a 
these pages strive to bring it, as in panoramic vision, before the observe 

** We think every reader will pronounce the work a fulfillment of t 
purpose thus announced," — Winsted Herald. 

It is z. pen portrait of that Man OF Fire, drawn in colors vivid as t 
lightnings of his mountain home, and revealing the sources of ] 
POWER, and the glory of his character. 

Its practical lessons, glowing with pious ardor, are a mighty insp] 
ATION toward the noblest type of manhood, and the loftiest ideal 
Christian excellence. I read it this forenoon. A royal feast I hs 
food from the King's table. It made me pray, sing and rejoice, 
bless God for the dear little book. Oh that everybody could read 
— Wm. Hauser, M. D, 

A critic, charmed with its style, has pronounced it * *A prose poeIvj 



Third edition, i6mo, 72 pp. Paper, 10 cents; cloth, 15 cents. 

THE HOPE PUBLISHING CO., 

9 De Bevoise Place Brooklyn, N. 



NEVERTHELESSs 

A Sermon. 

By Rev, S. H. PLATT, A. M, 

AT THE M. E. TABERNACLE, BROOKLYN, N. Y., 
JANUARY 13, 1878. 



Dealing with some of the darker aspects of God's Providence in 
human life, it shows the alleviations that the Gospel presents. 

A cheering, helpful, consolatory production, in the best style of the 
author. 

The shadovrs and the sunshine, the sorrows and the joys are here so 
grouped that the beauty, grandeur and glory of God's plan stand out 
in doubt-silencing, wonder- wakening revealment. Send it to some sick 
or troubled friend. It will * * do him good and not evil all the days of 
his life." 

i2ino, 30 pp. Six cents. 

THE HOPE PUBLISHING CO., 

9 De Bevoise Place, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



THE WONDROUS NAME: 

A Sermon, 

By Rev, S. II, PL A TT, A, M, 

PREACHED AT THE MESSIAH CAMP MEETING, MILFORD, 
CONN., AUGUST 15, 1873. 



*' The pleasing -and confidential style of the preacher wins the att< 
tion of his reader from the first, while the strangely unconscious ir 
siveness of the practical questions advanced makes everyone feel tj 
' there is something here for me ! ' Vv e confess that it is a long ti: 
since we have risen from the perusal of a sermon which, besides 1 
great subject on which it treats, has so impressed us with its practi 
bility and beauty as this sermon on *The Wondrous Name.'" — 1 
Christian Standard. 

'* It abounds in beautiful passages, but pages ic-ii are the m.ost si 
lime, beautiful and poetical that I have ever read." — Dr, I. Winsl 
Ayer, Editor of The Well Spring. 

^'Beautiful!" ** Grand!" '^Glorious!" are some of the comm 
expressions of readers as they close its pages. Ministers sometin 
read it to their congregations. It is helpful and soul-lifting to a rare ( 
gree. Order it for some tempted, troubled or afflicted friend. Senc 
to some son or daughter of poverty, struggling to keep the \<io\i fr* 
the door. It will nerve heart and arm together. 

Eighth edition, i2mo, 33 pp. Six cents. 

THE HOPE PUBLISHING CO., ■ 

9 De Bevoise Place, Brooklyn, N. 



14 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAI( HOLlf^ESS. 

Originally publisked as a 241110 pamphlet, sermon (now out of print) is repub- 
lished as a Treatise under the Title of 

CHRISTIAN HOLINESS, 

ITS 

Philosoppiy, Theory and Experience. 



What was said of ihe Sermon : 

Bishop R. S. Foster, D.D., LL.D., wrote: *' It contains not only 
important and astutely expressed truth but, more than that, points the 
way to some deep and occult cases which are of real value to the dis- 
cussion. " 

** I am pleased with its fresh and original way of treatment. . ^' . 
Although novel it is essentially sound." — James Strong, S. T, D. 

**This discourse by Rev. S. ti. Platt, from i Thess., iv. 3, for its 
originality and clear reasoning, and at the same time deep pathos and 
spiritual power, we have rarely heard equaled. We understand that at 
the spontaneous request of the preachers, and many interested hearers, 
the discourse is likely to be published. If it is, we bespeak for it a 
warm reception." — Christia7t Advocate and jour7zal. 

"Friday. — The stillness of that glorious morning in the woods, and 
the large attendance of glowing worshipers, with hearts and faces ail 
radiant with the hallow^ed influence of a love-feast (in which forty-eight 
out of one hundred and tvv^enty speakers testified to having received the 
sanctifying graces of the Holy Spirit), were improved by a sermon from 
Rev. S. H. Platt, of Winsted, on the subject of sanctification, from 
I Thess., 4 13. Mr. Platt's well earned reputation of an independent 
thinker made all anticipate something fresh on a subject which, more 
than all others, perhaps, of a directly practical character, is engaging 
the attention of all branches of evangelical churches, and we were not 
disappointed ; independent, logical, new in modes of thought and cloth- 
ing: starting objections and then meeting them ; putting the plough- 



15 

share under beaten definitions and phraseology, but turning up at las 
thoroughly Wesleyan furrows, so that while the old dress was laid asid 
you felt safe that the thing itself would take no harm — some of his pos: 
tions, doubtless will awaken discussion and when the request (whic 
was almost simultaneously made by both preachers and people) fc 
the publication of the sermon shall be granted, we expect a lively time 
The best evidence of the scripturality of the discourse is the fact ths 
numbers of souls entered into the rest of faith while he was preaching. 
— The Methodist. 

'*The application of the subject is rich in thought and style, an 
must have thrilled those who heard it/' — Western Advocate. 

*■ ' That sermon was the means, under God, of scattering the dar 
clouds from my mind, and bringing me into the full liberty of the chi 
dren of God."— 7?^z/. W. II. Adams. 

'^ It cleared up some knotty points which had troubled me." — Rev. C 
IV/iztney. 

^' I have never read or heard a sermon in which this great and in 
portant doctrine, in its various bearings, is so concisely and clearly d( 
fined. I feel that I have reached anchorage ground." — Rev. G. II. Gooc 
sell. 

*' It is rich and profound in thought and deeply spiritual," — Rev. j 
VzKton. 

'' I think it among the best on the subject."' — Rev. Ax . R. Pulling, 

** The right, and to my mind, the only defensible theory; but the lir 
is so new, involving so many other doctrines, that only a most carefi 
plan can save from a labyrinth of discussion." — Rev. F. Boitome, D.I 

'* I have been as much pleased and profited in reading as I was i 
hearing it. "—i:^z/. J. VV. Home, D. D. 

" The point of excellence in the discourse, as it appears to me, 
its solution of the question as to the relation of regenerate souls n( 
sanctified. I have read about every thing in print on this subject, bi 
have never seen a satisfactory explanation until now." — Rev. A. L 
Crawford, A. M. 

"Decidedly the best thing y/e have ever seen on the doctrine ( 
Holiness. " — World'' s Crisis. 

'^The single points of the obliteration of evil habits and the entir 
oanctifi cation of the soul by the revolutionary and supernatural substiti 



tion of the Koly Spirit, in opposition to the work of self-determining 
will alone, is worth more than volumes that have been written on the 
theme. Indeed we know of no point made in Wesley, Watson, or any 
other author, of equal value on that head. That alone, the heart and 
core of the sermon, is of unspeakable value, were there nothing else to 
preserve. But there are many other excellences of great merit, and 
the keen analysis, searching logic, forcibleness of thought and state- 
ment, and freshness and pov*^er of illustration, mark their possessor, we 
hesitate not to say, as one of the most philosophic minds of the Church, 
while the unmistakable and baptized unction that pervades the discourse 
cannot fail to impart its fragrance to every devout reader." — George 
Lansing Taylor, D , D. 

'■' It is admirably stated and conclusive. A very valuable aid to the 
practical theology of the great doctrine." — Christian Advocate. 

'* I have in it more positive and satisfactory ideas concerning this all- 
important subject than ever before." — Rev. S.- K, SmitJi, A. M, 

" It is a power for good." — Rev. R. H. Wilkinson. 

CHRISTIAN HOLINESS : ITS PHILOSOPHY, TPIEORY AND 
EXPERIENCE. 

This volume contains all the points of excellence commended in the 
sermon, together with the results of the author's investigations during 
the intervening years. 

It is believed to be the only work upon the subject claiming to be a 
thorough philosophy constructed according to the scientific method of 
modern thought. 

It is also, like all the author's writings, intensely practical. 
304 pp., i6mo, $1. Cloth. 

THE HOPE PUBLISHING CO., 

9 De Bevoise Place, Brooklyn^ N„ Y, 



I^p^^^ 






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mhS.^'^^ of congress 



021 226 152 A 




